You can’t blame John Carroll, the Marin County superintendent of schools, for sounding a bit like someone marketing new attractions when he speaks about public schools across the county.
It’s true. Marin school officials have a lot about which to be excited.
Since the day classrooms were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020, addressing the concerns of parents and students while getting kids to class has been a primary focus for everyone.
The vast majority of Marin students are now back for the start of the 2023-24 school year. By all accounts, that’s the way it should be as Marin educators continue to rebound from slumping test scores during the days of remote and hybrid learning.
Getting kids in class is also a major driver in funding for most Marin public schools. Those districts rely on numbers-based attendance for funding. The county has seen a steady decline in enrolled students the last six years, dating back before the pandemic began. Happily, Carroll believes that those statistics will flatten this year, with no drop expected.
“We don’t anticipate any significant change in overall school district enrollment in Marin County for the 2023-24 school year,” Carroll said in an interview with the IJ.
That’s big news. That confidence from the Marin County Office of Education allows individual school districts to take a breath and focus on getting back to the important task for delivering the top-rated education the county is known to provide.
Carroll said the positive stabilization is visible in employment as well.
“We still have a shortage of school employees, but staffing trends this year seem to have improved a lot,” Carroll said.
One countywide focus in recent years has been proper ventilation for all public school classrooms. With rising temperatures, wildfire smoke and the threat of coronavirus outbreaks all part of life in Marin these days, putting off the improvements was no longer possible.
“It is safe to say that all Marin County public, private, independent and parochial schools have taken significant steps over the past several years to improve indoor air quality in response to wildfire air quality concerns and then COVID,” Carroll said.
The changes not only will make things more comfortable for students and teachers trying to create a pleasant learning environment, they will help keep things safe as part of the county’s extensive plan for dealing with any coronavirus outbreaks in the new school year.
Marin Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis has been able to relax some of the past restrictions as he looks forward to new plans from the state to make COVID-19 protocols part of larger communicable illness health guidelines for all students. The cautious progress is a welcome sight for all of us.
“We’re so much better off than we have been, coming into this new school year,” Willis told the IJ.
The state will still provide at-home COVID-19 tests for students, but the requirements for testing have been modified. Certainly, students who test positive need to stay home, but the common-sense changes will do more to keep kids in class for the betterment of their education.
Among Marin’s 17 public school districts, there are four new superintendents. That’s exciting. As our schools rebound and progress, the expectation is that these administrators – some of whom worked outside the county – bring new ideas and concepts to help Marin kids grow and learn.
Ever since the pandemic began, school officials have been forced to “duck and weave” pitfalls like falling attendance, dropping test scores and a lack of typical funding. For the most part, Marin schools appeared to survive the worst of it.
As officials move to a proactive (rather than reactive) mode, students are in a better position to thrive.
