These SLO County districts want to hold in-person classes at elementary schools. Here’s how
Two North County school districts have begun the process of applying for waivers from the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department for elementary school in-person instruction.
Paso Robles Joint Unified School District and Atascadero Unified School District are both in the planning stage for applying for the waivers.
Each district must consult with parents and teachers’ unions before formally bringing plans for approval to their respective school boards. If the boards approve the plans, the districts would then send them to the county Public Health Department for approval.
If county health officials approve the waivers, the county must then submit a notice to the California Department of Public Health regarding their decision.
Waiver requests are expected to take at least one week for review after submission.
The two school districts would become the first public districts to apply for waivers. As of Wednesday, 13 private schools have been approved for waivers and are allowed to teach students in person.
Do parents, teachers want kids back to in-person learning?
How comfortable are parents with sending their kids back to school in person?
Out of 1,000 parents who responded to Paso Robles Joint Unified survey sent before the district’s Sept. 8 meeting, 54% said they were very comfortable, and 25% said they were comfortable but with reservations about sending kids to in-person instruction.
About 60% of all teachers and 45% of elementary school teachers who responded to the survey expressed a willingness to return to in-person school if the plan was safe and approved by county public health.
When responding to an Atascadero Unified survey, most teachers indicated that they would like to stay in fully distanced learning, while the majority of parents said they wanted to send their kids to in-person instruction.
In a survey sent to parents in early August, 39% out of about 970 respondents indicated they would like to keep their children in fully distanced learning, while about 62% said they want to send their kids to attend classes in school.
When surveyed by the district, 56% of teachers asked to remain in fully distanced learning, while about 44% wanted to go back to in-person learning.
Atascadero Unified attempted to conduct a more recent survey, district Superintendent Tom Butler said the results were likely skewed as respondents could answer the survey multiple times. The district is working on sending out another survey to parents.
Have Atascadero, Paso Robles districts applied for waivers?
Neither Atascadero Unified nor Paso Robles Joint Unified have submitted their waiver applications to the county yet, but both are getting close to doing so.
Paso Robles Joint Unified Superintendent Curt Dubost will submit the proposed plan to the school board during its next board meeting on Sept. 22. There, board members will discuss the plan and decide whether to approve it.
Dubost said he’s “quite certain” that the board members will approve the plan. If they do, it will get sent to county public health officials on Sept. 23, who will then take up to two weeks to approve or deny the plan.
In its Sept. 8 board meeting, the Paso Robles district targeted Nov. 2 as the date to begin in-person instruction for transitional kindergarten and kindergarten, and Nov. 16 to begin in-person instruction for first and second grades. Grades three through five would likely be phased in after the winter holiday, Dubost told The Tribune Wednesday.
The Atascadero school district has just begun the process of planning for their reopening of schools.
Butler will not submit a plan to the school board until Oct. 6. If the board approves it at that time, the following steps mirror those of the Paso Robles school district; approval of the waiver once again depends on the county public health department.
A denial from county public health officials doesn’t necessarily mean the plan to obtain a waiver for in-person classes is dead — just that it may need improvements or modifications before it can get approved.
What do the district’s reopening plans look like?
Both districts have their reopening plans public on their respective websites. You can view Paso Robles Joint Unified’s plan on its website’s District Updates: COVID-19 section, and Atascadero Unified’s plan in its public Google Drive.
The school boards also discussed the plans in recent meetings. You can listen and watch to the Paso Robles district’s board meeting on its YouTube channel, and the Atascadero district’s board meeting on its YouTube channel.
These plans may be modified before they are sent to the boards for approval.
Both districts want to apply for waivers to allow them to teach kids in a hybrid model. Simply put, this means that campuses will have fewer students than normal.
The Paso Robles district wants to offer one in-person class per grade level, from transitional kindergarten through fifth grade, at each of its six elementary schools. This means that only six total classes would take place at each elementary school after all grade levels have been phased in to in-person learning.
The district would have to adhere to state public health guidelines, which cap the number of students in a cohort at 14 and the number of adults at two. Those cohorts must stay together for all activities, including meals and recess, and avoid contact with anyone not in their group.
An issue with Paso Robles Joint Unified’s plan is that the district may run out of teachers for the number of students, Dubost told The Tribune on Wednesday. If more students want to return to in-person learning than the safety guidelines allow, some students will be placed on a wait list, Dubost said.
Atascadero Unified’s plan is slightly less clear. During the district’s board meeting on Tuesday, Butler said district officials are looking to do a “blended” model, possibly alluding to a hybrid model described in detail in their reopening plan.
That hybrid model would split students in half: some taking in-person classes in the morning, the rest in the afternoon, according to their reopening plan. The in-person learning would be supplemented by online modules, according to the plan.
Like Paso Robles Joint Unified, Atascadero Unified must adhere to the state’s cohort cap on the number of students and teachers allowed in the same group.
Butler did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Tribune for further clarification on what the district’s plan will entail.
In their plans, both school districts must include details regarding sanitation, facial covering and physical distancing protocols.
They must also include information about how the districts will encourage seasonal flu vaccination, the criteria the school district will use to determine when to physically close schools again, and how the districts will support the need for rapid coronavirus testing of students and staff when there is a confirmed case of COVID-19 at a school.
If both districts’ plans are approved, they each expressed their dedication to keeping three models for parents and students open: fully distanced learning, hybrid in-person learning and online-only independent study.
Have other schools applied for in-person classes?
According to the county Public Health Department, 13 private schools have been granted waivers for in-person elementary school as of Sept. 16. These schools are all small, and only account for a very small population of students, according to Dr. Penny Borenstein, public health director for the county.
The largest public school districts in the county — Lucia Mar Unified School District and San Luis Coastal Unified School District — both voted in July to remain in distance learning until winter break unless health conditions related to COVID-19 spread in the county improve.
All county school districts may return to in-person learning if the county transitions from the purple tier to the red tier and remains in that tier for at least two weeks, Borenstein said in a COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.
New California reopening guidelines released Sept. 4 place counties into four tiers, or colors, ranging from purple — meaning that a county has widespread COVID-19 cases — followed by red, orange and yellow. As counties move down through the tiers, more business sectors may reopen, according to state guidelines.
What does the SLO County Public Health Department say?
Borenstein said in a news release on July 29 that young children have less of a risk of transmitting and exhibiting serious symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
“COVID-related risks in schools serving elementary-age students are different from the risks to staff and students in schools serving older students,” Borenstein said in the release. “There appears to be a lower risk of child-to-child or child-to-adult transmission in children under 12 years old, and the risk of infection and serious illness in elementary school children is considered low.”
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that children, including very young children, can get sick with COVID-19, though their cases tend to be much less severe than those in adults and they often do not exhibit symptoms. The CDC is also investigating cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with COVID-19.
Adults, however, are more at risk of getting sick with COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization.
In order to get a waiver for in-person classes approved, a school district must have approval from its teachers’ union.
If students or teachers test positive for COVID-19, it could trigger the closure of their school.
The California Department of Public Health set out guidelines for schools detailing what steps to take should a student or staff member develop symptoms.
Schools closure may be appropriate when there are multiple cases within classes or groups at a school, or when at least 5% of the total number of teachers or students test positive for COVID-19 within a 14-day period, according to the department.
The state Department of Public Health also said that a superintendent should close a school district if 25% or more of schools in that district have closed due to COVID-19 cases.
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
