Coronavirus in rural America (LXXXVII): Back to school in Trinity County, California

Counseling Office at Trinity High School, Weaverville
July 2018 (c) Lisa R. Pruitt

Hailey Branson-Potts reports for the Los Angeles Times from Weaverville, California, population 3,600, where schools have reopened.  The headline is catchy, "In a rural California town, schools try something extraordinary and risky: Classrooms with children."  Here's an excerpt:

Coffee Creek Elementary School, well north of Weaverville
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

While the vast majority of California students are starting the academic year online, something extraordinary happened in this public school district in rural Northern California: Students sat in classrooms.

Skateboarding teenager, Weaverville
July (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

With the region’s low case count, school administrators and teachers said they are confident they can reopen safely and quickly adjust if infections emerge. If the district is successful, it could be a preview for other California schools, including in Los Angeles County, as infections begin to decline. 

Trinity County Office of Education, Weaverville
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

The start of in-person instruction in the Trinity Alps Unified School District felt both surreal and comfortingly routine, an act of desperate, fragile hope five months after the COVID-19 pandemic closed campuses across the Golden State.
But this is a story not only about the opening of a rural school district--in sharp contrast to urban ones--it is also about so many of the concerns we've heard expressed since children got sent home in March.  Another excerpt follows:

After schools closed in March, many isolated students here battled apathy and anxiety, witnessed increased drug and alcohol abuse by their parents, and fought more with their stressed-out families, the county noted in its school reopening plan. As in other rural areas, the district struggled to teach far-flung students who have less access to the internet and bad cellphone service and who rely on schools to feed them. 

“There’s a lot of despair,” said Sheree Beans, the school nurse for the Trinity County Office of Education who helped write the schools’ reopening plan. “I feel like COVID took away hope, and that lack of hope, it spans generations.”

College pennants hanging in Trinity County Office of Education
including Oregon State, Utah, Stanford, San Diego State
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

What a poignant quote, and one that reflects my own experiences growing up amidst rural poverty that is entrenched and intergenerational.

Some data points about Trinity County:

• population is 82% white
• poverty rate (before the pandemic) was 22%
• officially, nearly 2/3 of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, though administrators suspect the percentage who qualify is actually higher

Weaverville Junior High School
Title I funds go to schools based
on student socioeconomic need
(c) Lisa R Pruitt 2018

Branson-Potts' story, accompanied by Kent Nishimura's photographs, cover not only the county seat, but also at least one outlying elementary school, at Burnt Ranch, population 291, in the northwestern part of the county. I drove through a community of a similar size, Coffee Creek, as I headed north on State Highway 3, toward Siskiyou County (see Coffee Creek Elementary photo, above).

Weaverville, California
Dollar General Stores are fixtures in the rural U.S.
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Another terrific detail in this story regards the long bus rides some students endure.  One high school student who lives near Willow Creek, more than 50 miles from Weaverville, had gotten up at 5:30 am so his mom could get him to the farthest point the school bus goes, at 6:47 am.  The bus would arrive at Trinity High School after 8 am.

Other Legal Ruralism posts featuring Trinity County news and photos, several touching on rural poverty and related issues, are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The western edge of Weaverville, Highway 299
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

I'll just say, as I've said before, the primary reason I subscribe to the Los Angeles Times (digital edition), at a rate now of about $25/month (more than I pay for any other digital subscription), is that they dedicate significant resources to covering rural far northern California. This piece is exhibit A, though I've blogged about many others in recent years.  

This office is right next to the Trinity County Sheriff's Office;
in fact, they may be in the same structure.  A sign says the building was built in 1981.
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018