It’s a moment parents have been waiting for.
On Tuesday all of San Diego County’s 861 public and private schools will get the green light to reopen, provided the county’s COVID-19 rate stays below 100 cases per 100,000 people.
But Tuesday will not immediately unleash a floodgate of school reopenings among school districts.
Most districts, however, are planning to wait weeks or months before reopening, and when they do, most will first reopen partially.
Officials at several districts said they are waiting or reopening slowly, rather than opening all at once, to avoid jeopardizing safety by opening too quickly.
“We must approach reopening carefully and thoughtfully to avoid the mistakes we are seeing in other districts that have already been forced to shut down,” said Poway Unified Superintendent Marian Kim Phelps in a statement.
Some districts also said COVID-19 levels are still too high in their own communities and that there isn’t enough testing happening to ensure a safe reopening.
The news of delayed district reopenings disappointed several parents who are desperate for relief from home-schooling.
“I work in occupational health and safety and I understand what it takes to open up a workplace again,” said Jennifer Dunaway, a mother of a seventh-grader and fourth-grader in San Diego Unified. “The school districts had since March 13 to start thinking about this.… Until they get their act together they’re forcing us to stay home and teach our children.”
Other parents are more understanding of the districts’ closures and safety concerns.
Brittany Brasher, a single working mom whose 6-year-old son attends Angier Elementary, said she prefers keeping schools closed. It doesn’t make sense to put children and staff in schools “with no idea of a for-sure way to get a hold on the virus,” she said.
“Does it suck? Absolutely, but having my family members healthy is my number one concern,” Brasher said. “And as a parent who has tested positive and had to quarantine myself from my child as a single parent … I don’t wish that on anyone.”
Districts’ reopening plans
Since July the state has forced schools to remain closed for as long as San Diego County was on the state’s COVID-19 watch list. Now that it’s off the list, schools can reopen starting Tuesday and won’t be forced to close again if San Diego County returns to the watch list.
Schools will have to close temporarily, though, if 5 percent of their students or staff at a school test positive for COVID-19. An entire district will have to close if a quarter of its schools close within a two-week period.
Many districts are reopening in a hybrid model, where students attend in-person for only part of the week.
La Mesa-Spring Valley, for example, is having students attend in-person classes two days a week and do distance learning three days a week.
That will allow the district to cut class sizes by more than half and create enough space in classrooms for physical distancing. This also means half as many students would have to quarantine for two weeks if someone in a classroom were to test positive for COVID-19, Superintendent David Feliciano said.
Other districts plan to reopen in phases by bringing back their youngest students or students with special needs first for in-person support.
Poway Unified expects to open in phases, starting with elementary schools and special needs students, then it will bring middle and high school students back on campus after the first grading period, Phelps said.
The district also has started holding in-person special education assessments on campus when virtual assessments aren’t appropriate, spokeswoman Christine Paik said. The district may reopen sooner to small groups of middle and high school students for specialized activities and instruction, Phelps said.
San Diego Unified will start reopening by offering in-person help sessions to as many as 12,000 students with learning loss and special needs, as soon as late September. Starting Sept. 8, Chula Vista Elementary will bring at least 1,500 students to campus for in-person distance learning support, with priority for children of teachers and homeless and foster youth.
Both districts haven’t decided yet when they will bring back more students.
Vista Unified is planning to hold off on a wholesale return to campus for six weeks but is considering in-person instruction for small groups of at-risk students and those requiring special services, Superintendent Matt Doyle said.
“It’s entirely possible that we will have very small groups of kids on campus for short amounts of time: (English as a Second Language learners,) foster and homeless youth, speech and language interventions,” he said. “Because those interventions are almost impossible to provide online.”
Carlsbad Unified School District will remain in virtual learning for the first four weeks after school starts for elementary students and for the first grading period — or seven weeks — for middle and high school students. That places their reopening targets at Sept. 21 and Oct. 9, respectively, Superintendent Ben Churchill said.
Carlsbad’s board hasn’t decided yet whether students will return full-time or part-time with a blended learning schedule for two days a week, he said.
“At minimum we have a plan ready to go to allow students to learn on campus two days per week and at home three days per week,” he said. “We’re working now to determine if there is any way to enhance that.”
Escondido Union High School District voted to start the school year online before the state required San Diego schools to do so, and it will stick with its plan to continue with distance learning until at least Sept. 25, said Superintendent Anne Staffieri in an update to families.
Mountain Empire Unified, a rural district in east county, will stay with distance learning “for the time being” because of issues with transportation, Superintendent Kathy Granger said. Mountain Empire encompasses 663 square miles and transported 95 percent of its students before the pandemic began.
“Social distancing on the school bus is something we have not figured out, although we know that if we don’t provide busing, then many of our students won’t be able to get to school,” Granger said.
Only a few districts plan to open within the next couple weeks.
The small and elementary-only Rancho Santa Fe district has already been open for in-person learning since last week, because it got a county waiver to reopen.
Del Mar Union, another small district that also received a waiver, will return to in-person learning for all on Sept. 8, according to its website.
“Our district’s planning for a safe reopening has been occurring for months, and we continue to work closely with (the Health and Human Services Agency) and physicians as we prepare to safely reopen,” Superintendent Holly McClurg wrote on the district website.
Alpine Union, another small district that got a waiver, will phase in reopening by starting with preschool special education students on Sept. 2. It won’t begin hybrid learning for all students until Sept. 21 because it wants to make sure safety procedures are running smoothly before bringing everyone back, Superintendent Rich Newman said.
Bonsall Unified said it hopes to reopen in person “at the earliest date possible,” but it must negotiate with teachers on working conditions, said Superintendent David Jones.
“We are hopeful this will be completed expeditiously,” Jones said in a memo to parents.
Why districts are waiting
Districts say they will open gradually because that’s what health and science experts recommend and to minimize chances that schools will have to re-close due to outbreaks.
Some district officials said they are waiting a few weeks before opening to focus on getting distance learning right. That’s important because students will continue distance learning while in a hybrid model, and schools will have to revert back to full-time distance learning if there’s an outbreak, said Feliciano, of La Mesa-Spring Valley.
Even though San Diego County’s overall COVID-19 case rate has remained below 100 per 100,000 for two weeks, “that is not the story for some of our communities,” said County Superintendent Paul Gothold in a media briefing Thursday.
South county and south San Diego have, throughout the pandemic, borne the brunt of COVID-19 cases, which is why the area’s largest school systems are choosing to remain closed.
Sweetwater Union High, for example, will offer distance learning only until at least Oct. 2, and it won’t make another announcement about a reopening timeline until Sept. 21, officials said.
COVID-19 testing is another issue causing some districts to remain cautious. Testing and contact tracing are crucial for containing outbreaks and they have been key to successfully opening schools in other countries.
But state and county officials have acknowledged that California’s testing capacity and turnaround times are limited. In San Diego County, commercial labs can take four to six days to process a test.
Some schools have plans to routinely test all their staff, but many others do not. Regular testing is not required for schools, even though data show many COVID-19 infections are spread by people who show no symptoms.
The San Diego County Office of Education announced Thursday it is working to set up COVID-19 testing sites specifically for school staff by late September.
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San Diego County schools will get green light to reopen Tuesday, but many districts will remain closed - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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