San Francisco plans to open community learning hubs to support distance learning in an effort to help students that might not have access to a computer.
The locations will be supervised with equipment and a full-day of programming and some certainty around what their day will look like.
One of the hubs is expected to open at the Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center in September.
“It’s a paramount need,” said Mark Sanchez, president of the Board of Education and a teacher in Daly City. “We need to make sure that the most vulnerable students, who we know who they are, they went through distance learning in the spring. We need to make sure they have opportunities that other students have already gotten.”
The city is prioritizing kids who could use more help.
“Particularly our homeless children, our children in public housing, our children in foster care who need it the most,” said Maria Su from the Department of Children Youth and Their Families
It’s not just connectivity and equipment but a full day of programming, meals, outdoor play and more tools to help them succeed.
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“The human interaction, the social interaction, and primarily because their families are working all day, they need care. Families need care,” said Su.
They’re working with the Department of Public Health using guidelines for safety and say they’ve done emergency childcare and youth programs which provided experience with masks and stable cohorts of children.
The plan is for more than 40 sites with up to 6,000 children K-6th in a phased roll out.
