SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz County Office of Education has plans with various school districts to expand in-person programs and services for their students while mitigating the transmission of the coronavirus.
“We are grateful that our local health conditions are improving to allow us a path forward for our schools but were also aware that national COVID-19 conditions have worsened,” said Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah during a town hall event Monday via Zoom. “If we are not vigilant in our efforts, we may see an increase in community spread.”
School districts in the county began expanding their in-person services in small groups to social distance as best as possible throughout October. Educators understand the struggles of distance learning and want to mitigate the issues, but also have the health of their students and community at the top of their priorities.
Districts across the county also plan to implement a hybrid learning schedule, which will limit the number of students on campus to 50% at any time. Parents have the option to keep their children at home for continued distance learning but should be prepared for schedules and instructors to change.
“We recognize distance learning continues to be a large challenge for many of our students,” said Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez. “We want to bring them back to school to provide equitable learning environments for all. We must also approach a return to in-person instruction cautiously to ensure we do not unintentionally spread the virus in our community.”
Santa Cruz County’s 10 school districts have partnered with the county’s public health office to create a safe plan while attempting to return to in-person instruction. The Office of Education laid out two criteria systems to keep the transmission of the virus as low as possible.
“These criteria are crucial systems that must be in place to prevent and minimize the spread of COVID-19 in schools, should outbreaks occur,” said Mountain Elementary School District Superintendent Diane Morgenstern.
The first criterion focuses on surveillance testing for school personnel county-wide, Morgenstern said. All public, private and charter schools in Santa Cruz County who will be offering in-person instruction are required to participate in order to keep the risk of transmission as low as possible.
“Surveillance testing is where we do tests for COVID-19 on a cyclical basis,” Sabbah said. “We put everyone on a schedule and test them for COVID-19 on an ongoing basis. The requirement from the California Department of Public Health is that 25% of the staff are tested at least every two weeks.”
The second criterion focuses on health conditions within the community. In this criterion, schools will work with the county health department to identify possible hotspots for new cases, explained Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro. The districts and public health officials will then work together to limit the spread in those areas.
“If our mitigation strategies continue to fail to maintain clusters or outbreaks within a district, the district and public health may consider decisions to reduce or suspend in-person services,” Munro said. “However, with these systems in place, we have a plan to safely increase our in-person services for our students.”
One strategy the Office of Education is implementing is surge testing in the event of an outbreak. Surge testing allows districts to test everybody and get results as soon as possible, said Sabbah. The test will follow a positive COVID-19 test and be administered to those who were in contact with the infected person.
Districts will not require the mass testing of students. However, Sabbah encourages parents to get their children tested if they have a reason to such as symptoms or exposure to an infected person.
“Our understanding is that we cannot require and probably do not want to require students to be tested as it is considered a medical procedure,” he said. “It is something that we encourage parents to do if there is a reason for that.”
While districts will not be requiring students to get tested, they will make surge testing available to students and families in the event of an outbreak, Sabbah said.
Some schools that have already offered in-person services have had positive cases. However, there have been no outbreaks thanks to the procedures the Office of Education has put in place, Sabbah said.
Parents are advised to keep their contact information updated in order to stay informed about future outbreaks and action plans.
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Santa Cruz County Office of Education makes plan in case of outbreak - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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