At a recent meeting of the Fremont Unified School District Board of Education, Superintendent CJ Cammack presented the results of a self-selecting survey of parents, asking their feelings about continuing remote learning across the district's 42 schools.
The survey results should have provided a level of comfort for the elected board to stay the course: 63% of the nearly 11,000 parents who responded said they preferred to have their child remain in distance learning for the rest of the school year.
Then the public comment period began.
For nearly an hour, parents called in to levy their frustrations at the board, urging its members to produce a plan to reopen classrooms in the Bay Area's third largest school district.
"What about the 36% of the district? Are they not important?" asked Irene Shen, a district parent. "Not every parent will come here to speak but everyone will vote with their feet."
The status of public schools in California has remained largely static in the year since the pandemic began: Most remain shuttered, and large Bay Area districts like San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont have been in distance learning throughout the pandemic.
But the political landscape is shifting rapidly as local and state officials attempt to chart the course for a potential return to class. Finding a consensus among parents on such an emotionally charged issue is proving impossible, with surveys and polling providing limited guidance.