Cal Poly plans to bring 4,500 students back to campus as SLO County COVID-19 cases soar
Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo plans to bring thousands of students back to on-campus housing and in-person classes for winter term as the coronavirus pandemic has worsened with reported cases and deaths surging.
The term begins Jan. 4, 2021, and students can start moving into the residence halls on Jan. 3, though any who have no in-person classes are advised to wait until at least Jan. 8 to move in.
About 4,500 students are expected to live on campus — the same number as in the fall — with roughly 4,300 students expected to take in-person classes over the term.
A total of 20,538 students were enrolled for winter term classes at Cal Poly as of Nov. 16, according to the university.
The university’s decision to move forward with its plans come as COVID-19 positive cases and deaths in San Luis Obispo County have skyrocketed in the wake of the Thanksgiving holiday. Local hospital leaders have begged the community to “hunker down” as intensive care unit beds fill up across the county.
Cal Poly has reported 886 positive COVID-19 cases among students as of Friday. The number of cases more than tripled within a month after the Halloween holiday: increasing from 259 cases Oct. 31 to 855 by Nov. 30.
Cal Poly employees authored an open letter this week raising concerns about the university’s ability to contain the virus. The letter, which The Tribune received, calls for Cal Poly to only offer virtual classes for the winter, allow fewer students in dorms and guarantee at least twice weekly coronavirus testing for students. It has been signed by nearly 300 Cal Poly faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members.
California State University Chancellor Timothy White and incoming Chancellor-select Joseph Castro also penned a letter in early December to CSU presidents asking them to consider delaying in-person classes as much as possible and to reduce residence hall capacity.
In an interview with The Tribune on Tuesday, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong maintained that bringing students to campus is the safest and smartest option.
“We believe we’re going to be able to manage cases much better than if we told students to stay home,” Armstrong said.
“There’s really not a significant improvement in public health by canceling in-person classes, which are very safe,” he added. “And why would you remove the testing and the control and the procedures and the requirements for testing that we can have by having students on campus and in in-person classes?”
Cal Poly increases testing requirements to monitor COVID-19 spread
Under Cal Poly’s new testing requirements for winter term, students are required to get tested for coronavirus three to seven days before moving into on-campus residence halls and must present proof of a negative test upon arrival. If students can’t obtain tests before coming to campus, they are mandated to get tested at Campus Health & Wellbeing immediately upon arrival.
Three days after they arrive, students are required to get tested again.
After that, all Cal Poly students — those living on campus and off campus in San Luis Obispo County — will be tested twice a week. Exceptions will be allowed for those in special circumstances, the details of which will be announced later, Armstrong said.
Testing will be conducted for asymptomatic students through the university’s ongoing testing program, which is conducted by Avellino Lab, USA, an outside company contracted by Cal Poly. Symptomatic students will not be allowed to get tested by Avellino Lab but will get directed to get tested through the university’s in-house lab at Campus Health & Wellbeing.
In total, the university expects to have the capacity to test about 4,000 students a day, Armstrong said.
The university will also begin monitoring wastewater coming from campus residence halls for early signs of a possible COVID-19 outbreak among residents. Should any traces of the virus be detected in the sewage coming from a certain residence hall, the university will quickly test all students living there — either on a floor of the building or in the entire building — for COVID-19.
Cal Poly’s new testing requirements are a big step up from the fall, when students were only required to get tested three times over the 10-week quarter, and the university averaged about 3,700 tests a week — often far below its testing goal.
Students who don’t comply with testing requirements will lose access to their email, online classes, Zoom, the Health Center portal, library services, student pay, timesheet services and more, according to a COVID-19 Presidential Order released by Armstrong on Thursday.
The testing done by the university will count toward San Luis Obispo County’s overall COVID-19 metrics, Armstrong said, meaning it could bring the county’s positivity rate down and back into the red-tier range under California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
Additionally, Cal Poly has increased its isolation capacity on campus by 50 beds, to 236 total. In November, the university ran out of room for isolating students and moved about 20 students into a local hotel.
CSU leaders, Cal Poly employees encourage delay of face-to-face classes
In early December, CSU leaders White and Castro sent a letter to university presidents outlining their grim outlook on the current state of the coronavirus pandemic and encouraging campuses to adjust their 2021 winter and spring plans.
“The increasing percentage of positive tests, the growing number of hospitalizations, and the subsequent morbidity and mortality rates are extremely worrisome,” their letter read. “The pandemic’s progression, coupled with the reality that many of our students and employees will be traveling and/or socializing with others over the next several weeks (contrary to public health warnings against such behavior) throughout California, to other states and internationally, creates an immediate urgency to review — and likely adjust — campus plans.”
Mainly, the CSU leaders called for universities to delay holding in-person classes for as long as possible and increase testing capabilities if feasible.
Cal Poly did not adjust its plan for the winter term, as it has been “supported and endorsed” by the CSU and the local and state public health agencies, Armstrong told The Tribune.
“We’re the only campus on (the quarter system). We start Jan. 4; we have to have more in-person courses,” Armstrong said. “Most of the other campuses do not start until the second or third week in January. They don’t have as many courses in person. They don’t have as many residential students.”
In comparison, Cal Poly Pomona — which has a total student enrollment of about 27,900 students — will house only 250 students in on-campus residence halls during its upcoming semester. Only about 4% of its classes will be in person, whereas Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo will have 11% of classes be face-to-face.
Cal Poly employees penned an open letter asking university administration to delay face-to-face classes, further de-densify the dorms and guarantee at least twice weekly student COVID-19 testing.
“We all look forward to when we can be back together,” the letter read. “As a public institution of higher education, Cal Poly has a moral duty to help our community make it through this crisis. Thus far, Cal Poly has not taken this obligation seriously.”
The letter also decried the university’s COVID-19 mitigation efforts in the fall, noting that “roughly 5% of all students living in Cal Poly dorms contracted COVID-19.” “At various points in November, a quarter of all students living in the dorms were either in isolation or some form of quarantine,” the letter stated.
As of Thursday, 282 university faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and community members had signed the letter, including multiple staff members from Campus Health & Wellbeing.
On Tuesday, President Armstrong told The Tribune that he had seen the letter — and that those who wrote and signed the letter “are not in the majority.”
“We feel that our plan for the fall, and this plan for the winter and spring, really balances those places of priority on community, and Cal Poly public health,” Armstrong said. “And it’s endorsed by a number of experts, and it’s in compliance with the CSU and (San Luis Obispo) County Public Health. Reasonable people, even experts, can disagree on what they believe is the right approach.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 8:48 AM.
