This is a difficult letter to write. It came after hours of meetings with our Health and Safety team, in consultation with County Health officials, principals, and senior leaders from across the organization.
The Governor has issued new, unexpected guidelines for schools. On January 14, 2021, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a
new public health directive with
new requirements for all public and private schools in the state.
You can read the highlights in
this all-county letter from Dr. Naomi Bardach, head of the CDPH’s recently formed Safe Schools for All Team. You can also find the full directive and many other resources on the State of California’s
Safe Schools for All Hub. In our weekly meetings with members of the County Health Department, we are working together to understand these new requirements and are pleased to be partners in this process to benefit our community.
There are three immediate important items in the new public health directive for our review and follow up.
First, the CDPH directive creates a brand new definition for what it means for a school to be open. The term “open” or “reopen” refers to a school site that offers general in-person instruction to all students in at least one grade. Specifically, to meet the definition of “open” or “reopen,” the following criteria must be accomplished: (a) school site must have been open (b) given all students in at least one grade the option to return for in-person instruction for (c) general instruction (i.e., not just one subject) for (d) at least part of the school week while the County was in the Red Tier or lower. As you may recall, San Diego County moved from the Red Tier to the Purple Tier on November 14, 2020.
Six of our seven campuses have met the new criteria for “open” or “reopen.” We did not meet the criteria at <redacted> High School - Personalized Learning Campus. While all students in each grade level had the option to return for
in-person activities at CAHS-PL, this did not meet the requirement of
in-person instruction as stated in the new definition.
Second, in the new directive, CDPH clarifies that teacher and other team member desks are to be at least 6 feet away from students and other team member desks. Student chairs are to be at least 6 feet away from one another, except where 6 feet of distance is not possible after a good-faith effort has been made, and under no circumstances should the distance between student chairs be less than 4 feet.
This is new; previously, the CDPH document had indicated “six feet as practicable.”
Our Option A plans need to be revised based on this new information.
Third, the new directive clearly requires all schools (including middle and high schools) to implement “stable groups” of students and teachers for in-person instruction. CDPH defines a stable group as “
a group with fixed membership that stays together without mixing with any other groups for any activities” and is noted to be a “
key mitigation layer in schools.” While this is not an issue in some of our programs, our leaders and teachers are discussing how this will be accomplished at the middle and high school levels, as well as C'lectives, as it does not appear that we can run a traditional bell schedule with students mixing with students and teachers in multiple classes. We seek more clarification from CDPH, local health authorities, legal counsel on this issue, and our revised Option, A plans for grades 7-12 and K-8 C’lectives, will be based on this new information.
Next steps:
1. As a result of the new directive, we plan to modify our Option A plans for grades K-6 as follows: Starting Monday, February 8, 2021, students at the following campuses in these specific tracks and grades will come to class for
ONE half-day per week:
- redacted Academy - A/B Track grades K-6
- The redacted academy (redacted) - A/B Track grades K-6
- redacted academy redacted - A/B grades K-8 (grades 7 & 8 are self-contained classrooms and meet the stable group criteria)
Families at these three campuses and in these grades/tracks will receive a detailed Back to School email on February 1, 2021. This will include a link to tell us which day you prefer to be your “on campus” day.
2. For grades 7-12 and grades K-8 C'lectives, as stated, we are seeking guidance on stable groups. Once we have additional guidance, we will revise our plans and communicate with families as soon as possible.
3. In the meantime, based on the new directive,
all of our schools are allowed to “
provide in-person supervision, instruction, targeted support services, and facilitation of distance learning for some students, especially high-need student groups and students who may not be able to benefit fully from distance learning offerings.” As such, we are reviewing our current plans for our most vulnerable students to engage in distance learning from a classroom on our middle school and high school sites and communicate if there will be any changes in those groups. Additionally, we are evaluating our ability to expand this to include additional groups of students and update you as soon as we have more information.
These are challenging times for us all! In our weekly dialog with County Health officials, these topics are being discussed, vetted, and we have their support. It is times like these that we are deeply reminded of the value of our community. We appreciate the parents, our community, and the students we are honored to serve.
Curveballs from state officials are pretty much a given, and our teams' adaptability has been quintessential in supporting the success we have and want to continue to have at<redacted>