Less than 24 hours before teachers were set to give their first lessons of the new school year from inside their empty classrooms, the San Jose Unified School District has decided to give them the choice to work from home.

San Jose Unified was one of only a handful of districts in the region, including Morgan Hill Unified, that planned to make teachers return to campuses even without students there. Most of Morgan Hill Unified’s teachers showed up Monday.

“We got a commitment from the union that those teaching from home would provide the same quality of instruction as those teaching from the classroom,” Jacqueline Murphy, director of human resources, said in an interview Tuesday. “So, we felt comfortable expanding the opportunity for all teachers to work from home.”

The district’s last-minute reversal comes just two weeks after it and the San Jose Teachers Association reached an agreement requiring the majority of teachers to return to campus to deliver their virtual lessons. The deal was negotiated by the union’s governing board without a full vote from all teachers represented.

Prior to the new agreement, San Jose Unified had approved about 150 requests for employees to work from home for various health and personal reasons but others were denied the option or discouraged from making a request, according to teachers.

In the last couple of weeks, teachers and parents have criticized the district’s requirement, saying it was unnecessarily placing teachers in harm’s way by exposing them to more people, potentially elevating their chances of getting infected with COVID-19.

Most San Jose teachers have been on campus since late last week prepping their classrooms, preparing lessons and taking various online training and professional development sessions.

During that time, one elementary school teacher said she had to report her principal to the district for not wearing a mask while talking with teachers and staff and for having meetings with several employees around a small table in her office.

“I’m seeing things that make me very uneasy,” the teacher said. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to be on campus because of these irresponsible practices.”

While many of the district’s teachers had been asking for the option to work from home for weeks, some say the district’s last-minute decision is a prime example of its lack of communication and foresight.

“It feels like it’s awfully late in the game and that this could have been made a lot easier for everyone,” said a high school teacher in the district who asked not to be named out of concern of retaliation. “But it is still a win and that’s something to feel good about.”

Teachers received an email from San Jose Teachers Association President Patrick Bernhardt at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday informing them that they could now choose where to work from. The district’s new school year commences Wednesday morning.

Under the new agreement, all teachers are eligible to work from home so long as they submit a form to the district registering their decision beforehand. Teachers can go to campus to retrieve materials, but once they make a decision to work from home they won’t be allowed to change their minds and return. Any district employee who opts to work from home and fails to fulfill their job responsibilities will face disciplinary consequences, such as a dock in pay. Teachers will have this option at least until the district and union’s memorandum of understanding expires on Sept. 26.

Kathy Hesse, a parent of a student at River Glen School, said she was happy to hear about the new agreement but “wished the district was proactive, rather than reactive.”

“We have to treat our teachers with respect and (for teachers) to not have the trust of the district is troubling,” Hesse said. “I’d love for the district to be able to do that without having to hear parents and teachers have an uproar.”

Starting Wednesday, San Jose Unified students will begin the 2020-2021 school year with a full school day of distance learning — as opposed to most districts in the Bay Area that are shortening schedules. The school day will be as lengthy as always but is to include longer breaks so students and teachers can rest their eyes from computer screens.

Following some confusion last semester, the district is using a new online learning platform called CANVAS.

Although district leaders say they are working closely with the company to get students and staff set up as quickly as possible, the platform was not rolled out to students and parents until late Monday evening. And as of Tuesday, many parents and teachers were experiencing issues logging on, acquiring various required codes and uploading lessons.

An elementary school teacher said she found herself crying in her classroom Tuesday morning after she couldn’t locate any of the work she had uploaded to the platform for the next day’s lesson.

“Why is this happening? I should be spending time on curriculum and content, not technical issues,” she said. “It’s just terrible for everyone involved.”

Still, district officials say their top priority for Wednesday is to ensure students and teachers can — and will — get connected.

“We would have liked to get everyone in sooner, but when you’re trying to move a massive amount of data through the office of education, there are a lot of moving parts,” said Jodi Lax, assistant superintendent of instruction for the district. “This is a different reality than we’ve ever had to experience but our staff has been positive and we’re looking forward to the new year.”