SLO County school districts are set to reopen. Here’s what it will look like
Some of the largest school districts in San Luis Obispo County are set to begin reopening as early as this week to bring hundreds of students into classrooms for in-person instruction during the coronavirus pandemic.
But they’re not the first to return students to campus.
More than a dozen private schools in the county — ranging in size from just over 200 students to about 370 — have held in-person classes for students in kindergarten through 12th grade — in some cases, for several weeks.
Likewise, several public school districts across California — with student bodies in the thousands or tens of thousands — have reopened campuses.
The schools have various plans in place to ensure the safety of students and teachers while delivering a quality education.
Each plan mandates face masks for students — allowing some exceptions for those under second grade or with certain health restrictions — along with physical distancing and controlled cohorts of students and teachers.
“People in education have made a commitment to teach kids, and that, right now, is requiring us to step up to the plate in a way we never expected,” said Susie Theule, executive and visionary director at San Luis Obispo Classical Academy. “These are our kids’ lives, right? And what we do now will have a significant impact.”
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the county, state and nation, educators, parents and students are searching for the answer to one question: What’s the best way for schools to reopen?
There is no “one size fits all” solution for school districts, The Tribune found. But there are a few solid options that have proved effective when implemented along with the health and safety guidelines provided by the California Department of Public Health.
School reopening plans: Hybrid and standard
Schools and school districts around California have primarily implemented two types of reopening plans: hybrid or standard, according to reopening plan documents provided by school districts and interviews with several school administrators and teachers’ union representatives.
Some hybrid plans involve a split day schedule, which requires half the students to attend class in the morning while the rest attend class in the afternoon. Students do online learning when not in the classroom.
Other hybrid plans follow an alternating day schedule: Students attend in-person classes every other day and do distance learning on school days spent at home.
Those against the hybrid plan say that teachers will have to be on “double duty,” or create separate lesson plans for their in-person and distance learning groups each day. However, this can be mitigated by creating the same lesson plan for both modes of learning.
It can also be difficult for parents to get their kids to school, especially if districts are only offering limited bus transportation services. Additionally, if parents are unable to afford or find child care options, a hybrid plan may prove less appealing.
But hybrid plans help schools decrease class sizes when not enough students opt for distance-only learning, by splitting the students into two groups. Small class sizes are essential in order to maintain physical distancing, so some districts see the hybrid model as the only viable option.
With a standard schedule, students spend a full day learning in classrooms without being split into different groups. Schools with this plan often have shortened school days, take one day or a half-day off each week.
Schools able to implement a standard schedule tend to have smaller class sizes — either due to low enrollment or because many students remain in distance learning.
Some schools or districts have too many students to implement a standard schedule while maintaining the CDPH’s COVID-19 public health and safety standards.
Though the standard schedule is far less common among schools that have reopened in California, it provides a bit more normalcy than hybrid plans because it more closely resembles the schedule schools followed before the coronavirus pandemic.
Which plans are SLO County districts going to implement?
Paso Robles Joint Unified, Atascadero Unified and San Luis Coastal Unified school districts, which will start bringing elementary students back on Monday, are implementing different hybrid plans.
The Paso Robles and Atascadero districts plan to do a split-day schedule at their schools, according to each district’s reopening plans.
The North County districts will only bring back some of the elementary students, phasing in before January:
- On Monday, the Atascadero district will bring back students in transitional kindergarten through second grade.
- On Nov. 3, the Paso Robles district will bring transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students back to campus.
- On Nov. 16, the Paso Robles district will bring students in first through second grades to campus. The Atascadero district is also considering bringing back students in third through fifth grades that week, although that could change due to a conflict with parent-teacher conferences at that time.
- On Nov. 30, the Paso Robles district will bring students in third through fifth grades back to classrooms.
Also starting Monday, San Luis Coastal will bring back preschool and transitional kindergarten students for a full day of instruction on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, with Wednesdays as virtual-only days, according to Kim McGrath, the district’s assistant superintendent of education services.
Lucia Mar Unified School District plans to bring all elementary students back to campus starting Nov. 30, following the hybrid split-day model.
How SLO County schools have handled reopening
The state’s health and safety guidelines are paramount to each plan put in place, according to interviews with several school and school district administrators across San Luis Obispo County and California.
Every district that is reopening has strict sanitation and mask-wearing protocols in place, as required by the state Department of Public Health. Additionally, in all districts students can opt out of in-person learning and do distance learning or online independent study.
In San Luis Obispo County, only private schools and one very small school district — Pleasant Valley Joint Union Elementary near San Miguel — have reopened.
Coastal Christian School in Pismo Beach reopened to elementary school students Aug. 27 and secondary school students on Oct. 20, according to Tom Olmstead, the head of school..
The South County private school has just over 200 students and was able to implement a standard plan to have students back in classrooms for full days, Olmstead said. Many of the classrooms were retrofitted with clear Plexiglass shields when physical distancing is more difficult, he added.
Another local school, SLO Classical Academy in San Luis Obispo, opened to elementary school students Sept. 21, and secondary school students Oct. 19, according to Theule, the executive and visionary director.
SLO Classical Academy is different than most schools, however, in that it has always implemented a hybrid schedule for students. Students are in school two days a week and home for the other three, explained Jenny Karey, the school’s community life coordinator.
The hybrid plan is already “part of our curriculum and how we do things here,” Karey said. “So we already had a lot of stuff figured out that public schools here are just now starting.”
Pleasant Valley Joint Union Elementary opened its doors to students on Oct. 19 with a standard plan, according to its reopening plan.
Wendy Nielsen, the school district’s superintendent, said reopening went “smoother than we had anticipated” for the roughly 60-student district.
What to California public school districts
Elsewhere around California, larger public school districts have begun to reopen, instituting a wealth of measures to keep students safe.
“We did a lot of things to prepare to open,” said Scott Leaman, superintendent of Western Placer Unified School District in Placer County. “We put in extra hand-washing stations. We went to MERV 13 filters in every single space in our district. We sanitize every single day.”
When installed in a school’s HVAC system, air filters with MERV 13 or higher ratings are able to filter out smaller particles such as viruses.
Western Placer Unified School District, which has about 7,000 students, reopened on Oct. 6 to students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. Leaman said about 30% of the district’s students chose to stay in distance learning, meaning roughly 5,000 students are now taking in-person classes throughout the district.
The Northern California district has implemented the standard schedule plan for all grade levels, Leaman said. Students attend class from about 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on weekdays, with some variations across school sites, Leaman said.
As the district began planning for reopening early in the summer, Leaman said state guidance kept changing slightly. But one factor remained the same: the requirement of keeping students and teachers six feet apart at all times possible.
That’s a trickier aspect for schools to implement, Leaman and other school administrators said, requiring them to space desks apart and keep kids from congregating in groups during recess or between classes.
Early polling data gathered in June showed that though parents in Western Placer Unified wanted their kids in classrooms, some still planned to request distance learning, Leaman said.
“We knew pretty early on that about 30% were going to want to do distance learning,” Leaman said. “So right away that lowered our class sizes enough so we could try to space desks six feet apart.”
For larger districts, such as Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County, which has about 47,000 students, social distancing was a much larger burden, said Ryan Burris, the district’s chief communications officer.
Capistrano Unified implemented a quasi-hybrid model reopening plan beginning Sept. 24, with about 35,600 students returning to classrooms.
Elementary school students spend half the school day with their teachers, and the other half with another staff member — often a paraeducator or substitute teacher, Burris said. A paraeducator is a professional who assists with classroom instruction and provides direct services to students, according to the National Education Association.
Secondary school students, on the other hand, spend alternating days in classrooms and doing distance learning, Burris said.
“We had to get classes down from 30, 32 kids down to 16 or less,” Burris said. “So we would have had to double the number of teachers and double the amount of classroom space we have available. This was the way to do it where we wouldn’t have to create such an investment, which honestly, we couldn’t afford.”
Have reopening school districts reported COVID-19 cases?
With every reopening plan comes the fear of sparking new coronavirus outbreaks in the schools and broader communities.
No outbreaks have occurred as a result of K-12 schools reopening in San Luis Obispo County, county Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein told The Tribune on Wednesday.
At Western Placer Unified, 18 students tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Leaman said, and about 125 were under quarantine due to close contact with those who had tested positive.
And at Capistrano Unified, nine students have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the school district’s dashboard website.
COVID-19 cases among students and teachers are likely impossible to prevent entirely, Borenstein said. But with the right safety precautions in place, she said, schools can stop outbreaks from happening.
Parents should take caution when considering whether to send their kids to school, Borenstein said, especially those who may be immunocompromised.
“In general, however, kids of all school ages through high school really have — that we’ve seen — asymptomatic infection and mild illness if they do become sick. So I think that’s reassuring,” Borenstein said.
