In the Same Towns, Private Schools Are Reopening While Public Schools Are Not

Size makes a difference, too. When Justin Guerra, a sixth-grade English teacher at the Athenian School in Danville, Calif., taught public school, he had three times as many students as he has now. He is comfortable returning to the classroom when Athenian opens, given the new safety measures in place, but said he was sympathetic to public schoolteachers’ fears about returning.

“It’s such painful mixed emotions,” he said. “Remote learning is freaking hard — the amount of work that goes into it for the return you get is painful. You want to be with the kids; it’s the reason to do this job. At the same time, safety is our priority, and I don’t know the guilt we could carry if someone in our community got sick or died.”

Another key difference for private schools, said Mike Walker, the head of school at San Francisco Day, is flexibility. Independent schools don’t have all the same regulations for the curriculum or facilities that public schools have, and teachers generally aren’t unionized. They also have smaller student bodies, with less diverse needs.

The school decided to focus on bringing younger students back full time — because distance learning doesn’t work as well for them and it’s a crucial period for learning social skills — and junior high students part time. Though some teachers are anxious about returning, Mr. Walker said, they are trying to meet teacher’s individual needs.

“We’re nonunionized and really want to stay that way,” he said. “There’s a different ethos, a different culture. I chose to work in a smaller system because I think we can make decisions more quickly.”

When the San Francisco Unified School District said this month that it would probably be unable to open schools in the fall, “it raised really considerable issues of equity,” he said. “It breaks our heart.”

Public schools typically don’t have the resources that private schools do, and certain things, like the size of public districts, will always be different. But other changes are within policymakers’ or administrators’ control, researchers said.