Berkeley: Leaving No Child Digitally Behind

Regarding Steven Davidoff Solomon’s “Berkeley Schools Leave Every Child Behind” (op-ed, April 3), Solomon should know that under federal law public schools (unlike his first daughter’s private school) cannot just plow ahead with a structure that excludes free access to any student, whatever the special need and without threat of serious legal challenges with financial consequences to the district and the district taxpayers. What was really needed, at least in this district, would have been a short-term waiver of the actual federal statutes regarding free and public access for all students. That would be more apropos but perhaps, also ironically, the wrong approach. Because of those statutes Berkeley United School District went “online” a little later than the small private school, but it did so only after ensuring all of those connectivity-challenged households would also get connected. That’s the good side of the federal laws, but one cannot avoid the challenges of the complexity they pose. From my perspective as a parent, the district-level leadership and site-level educators may not have moved as fast as the private school next door, but made the transition aggressively without neglecting to take the right amount of time to engage all of its stakeholders (including parents and teacher unions) and address critical equity issues to proceed responsibly and effectively for a sustainable and legally prudent outcome.