Courtesy of Mendocino Montessori School
Students at Mendocino Montessori school attend class outdoors on Aug. 18, 2020.
Courtesy of Mendocino Montessori School
Students at Mendocino Montessori school attend class outdoors on Aug. 18, 2020.
Some small schools in Northern California, which had already opened for in-person instruction, were plunged into confusion this week when their county was placed on the state’s Covid-19 monitoring list.
One tiny school, the Whale Gulch School on California’s “Lost Coast” in Mendocino County, had to go suddenly from in-person instruction to distance learning, much to the shock of local school officials who thought that state regulations would allow them to stay open for on-campus learning, although with added requirements to test staff and students for the virus more often.
Courtesy of Whale Gulch School
Whale Gulch School in Leggett Valley Unified, opened for in-person instruction Aug. 17, 2020 and had to move to distance learning two days later because Mendocino County was retroactively added to the state’s county monitoring list for Covid-19.
The campus, which includes 53 K-12 students in an elementary and high school, is part of the Leggett Valley Unified School District. It relies solely on solar and battery power, and opened for in-person hybrid and distance learning instruction Monday, then had to abruptly send everyone home and move solely to distance learning Wednesday afternoon.
Over the past week, five rural counties in Northern and Eastern California have been added to the monitoring list — Amador, Mendocino, Calaveras, Sierra and Inyo.
County superintendents interviewed by EdSource in all but Sierra County said that being added to the list would not affect most districts in their jurisdictions because they had already decided to offer classes via online instruction. Many suspected their counties may soon be added to the list, even though they would have been permitted to teach students directly in school before being on the list.
Meanwhile, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Placer counties were removed from the monitoring list. Although Gov. Newsom said Wednesday that he expected San Francisco, which is both a city and a county, to also come off the list soon, no change was recorded on Thursday. Most schools in these counties are also likely to continue to offer most instruction via distance learning and cannot bring students back to classrooms until the counties in which they are located have been removed from the list for 14 consecutive days.
Under the guidance for school openings and closures issued on July 17 by the California Department of Public Health, all schools in counties on the state’s monitoring list during the previous 14 days would have to offer all instruction via distance learning, unless they reopened before the county was added to the list. The current list includes 40 counties encompassing 745 districts and 1,060 charter schools with a combined public school enrollment of about 5.3 million students or 87.7% of students in the state, not including those attending private schools.
The only exceptions to learning remotely in those districts might be in those that requested a waiver to serve some elementary school students in grades K-6, as well as some special education students and others with “acute needs.”
When the state released guidance for reopening schools last month, it said those that reopened for in-person instruction and were later placed on the county monitoring list would not have to close. Instead, such schools would be required to increase testing for Covid-19 on campuses, according to a July 17 state “reopening in-person framework.”
Mendocino County School Superintendent Michelle Hutchins said the county had been assured that under state regulations, if a school opened for in-person instruction, and the state subsequently added their county to the monitoring list, the school would be allowed to continue with in-person instruction.
Hutchins told school leaders on Tuesday that those that had already opened could remain open, based on information she received from the state.
She consulted with an outside legal firm and the state Department of Education, in an attempt to be sure she was giving her schools accurate information. But after back-and-forth communications about when the county met the thresholds to be added to the list, Hutchins was told on Wednesday that the California Department of Public Health had reversed its previous decision and retroactively added the county to the list as of July 25, before the list was frozen in part due to data glitches that did not accurately reflect county case data.
“We’re still waiting for that official notification,” Hutchins said Wednesday afternoon, explaining that she heard the news from a county supervisor. “We’ve been doing 360-degree turns all summer long.”
The sudden about-face frustrated the Leggett Valley Unified and Laytonville Unified public school districts, two charter schools and four private schools that had already opened for in-person instruction or planned to shortly, she said. Some, including the Waldorf School of Mendocino County, a private school, were holding some classes outdoors to reduce the risk of Covid-19 infections.
Courtesy of Mendocino Waldorf School
Mendocino Waldorf School students attend class outdoors on Aug. 18, 2020.
Rick Nelson, principal of the Ukiah Junior Academy Christian school, which opened last week, called the state’s about-face a “fiasco.”
“That was a shock,” he said, referring to being told Wednesday that the state belatedly added the Mendocino County to the list retroactively. “I’m sure we’re not the only school that had to put the brakes on. We’re frustrated, but we are not blaming anybody in our county. Our county has been very helpful.”
Nelson said he plans to seek a waiver for the approximately 75 K-6 students in his K-10 school. Hutchins said she anticipated most public schools in the county would not seek waivers, but private and charter schools might.
The state Department of Public Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why it reversed its initial decision about when the county was added to the list.
Most schools in other rural counties added to the monitoring list Monday were not adversely affected, county superintendents said, since a majority of schools had already decided to open in distance learning. Amador County Superintendent Steve Russell said no changes were anticipated.
Calaveras County school superintendent Scott Nanik said all districts were planning to open in distance learning “except for our small programs for at-risk students,” which “were up and running before the list was announced and will remain in-person at this time.”
Nanik said the only private school in the area, Christian Family Learning Center, plans to open in-person after Labor Day, “so they have time to watch the numbers before changing plans.” The county monitoring list is based on Covid-19 tests, positive results, hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions and the number of available ventilators.
Inyo County Superintendent Barry Simpson said most districts had been planning in-person instruction, but began re-evaluating their plans after a local senior center recorded “a significant increase in cases.” Based on that, the county public health director recommended that local districts start the school year in distance learning even before the county was added to the list, Simpson said. The districts agreed.
“In short,” he said, “we expected to be on the list, but made the decision before formally being identified.”
The Sierra County superintendent did not respond to requests for comment.
San Diego County and Santa Cruz County, which were both removed from the list this week, are now waiting to see if they will remain off the list for 14 consecutive days, so schools can begin in-person instruction.
ICYMI: @SanDiegoCounty has been removed from the state's watch list — what happens with schools now?
➡️ https://t.co/BliVbYw3Mg— SD County Ofc of Ed (@SanDiegoCOE) August 19, 2020
“We hope that our community is willing to take the measures they need to do social distancing, wear face coverings and stay home when they can,” said Music Watson, spokeswoman for the San Diego County Office of Education. “At the end of 14 days, that means schools will be allowed to reopen. But we don’t anticipate that right away all schools will reopen. There’s a lot of complexity, especially for our larger school districts, versus smaller independent schools.”
One hurdle is that most of the 42 school districts in the county have yet to reach agreements with unions about how to deliver in-person instruction, which is not an issue in some private or charter schools. Facilities improvements for physical distancing may also present challenges, she added.
“We know there are members of school staff who feel really uncomfortable or scared about the prospect of returning to the classroom,” she said. “So, school districts and labor associations have to find a way to compromise to make sure they’re keeping their staff safe, while doing their fundamental duty to educate children.”
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