Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders who allowed school shutdowns early in the pandemic are holding firm on keeping classrooms open. They’ve had support from the California Teachers Association despite some educators on the ground saying that working conditions are untenable due to staff shortages. And school districts are going to extreme lengths to keep students in classrooms, pulling retired teachers off the sidelines and recruiting office staff — at times even superintendents — to teach lessons.

It’s a dramatic turn for a state that once had the nation’s longest pandemic closures.

“I’m very, very sensitive to this, the learning opportunities that are lost because kids are not safely in school, the challenges of going online,” Newsom said when asked this month about distance learning. “My son, we had fits and starts, he’s in and out of school, said, ‘Please, Daddy, no more Zoom school.’”

“I hear that echoed all throughout the state of California,” he continued. “It’s really a critical, top priority for us to keep the schools open.”