Palo Alto, California is a wealthy city of 68,500 south of San Francisco and at the north end of Silicon Valley. It’s home to Stanford University. So, I guess you could say the city is filled with successful people, high achievers.

Parents there are not anxious for their children to return to online classrooms even as the Omicron variant surges. Neither are their kids. And neither are school officials although 170 teachers were out sick last week district-wide.

When the winter break ended, schools across the nation were faced with decisions regarding what to do as Covid spreads again. The Wall Street Journal reports that Palo Alto school superintendent Don Austin received an interesting text on a Saturday from his deputy. It read: “What would you think about soliciting parent volunteers to keep us afloat?” Superintendent Austin said it was “like a lightbulb went off.”

Mr. Austin sent out a video message to parents comparing Palo Alto to the town of Bedford Falls from the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” He told them “George Bailey needed the help of the entire community to help him to survive�”and they did, epicly.”

Mr. Austin issued a call to action. More than 700 parents across the district’s 18 schools responded. They signed up to work shifts as custodians, food-service workers, substitute assistants, and Covid testing aides. The jobs they’re doing don’t require any certificates or background checks.

Many of the parents are currently working from home on flexible schedules. Fang Xue is a software engineer at Google, who signed up for hour-long shifts wiping lunch tables. He said he liked having his 2 daughters home during the first year of the pandemic. But, according to the Journal, “he knew it was better for them to be in school.”

Online learning is a valuable tool. But, even parents in this community filled with successful techies are willing to step up to keep their children learning in person.