LBUSD Mgm't Signals March 29 Reopening for K-5 Students, Teachers/Staff Will Be Vax'd; District Acknowledges Parents Are Split, Will Be Offered Choice of Classroom Or Distance Learning; Middle And High Schools Reopening Will Require Lower COVID Case Rate Than Now, Tentative Mid School Return April 20, High School Seniors April 19 With Grades 9-11 April, 26. Details To Follow.
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(Feb,. 17, 2021, 11:45 p.m., video links Feb. 18 4:20 a.m.) -- At tonight's (Feb. 17) Long Beach School Board meeting, LBUSD management announced (and received no meaningful School Board pushback) to reopening TK-5 schools on March 29, with teachers and staff offered an opportunity to be vaccinated.
LBUSD management acknowledged that parents are split on the issue of reopening...and parents will be offered a choice of classroom or distance learning.
Middle and high school reopenings will require a lower COVID-19 case rate than L.A. County has now, but if the numbers fall further LBUSD tentatively plans to reopen middle schools on April 20, with high schools seniors returning April 19 and grades 9-11 following on April 26. .
Public comment on the agenda item can be heard in video below. 64 individuals submitted audio testimony (recordings) but only 17 were heard. Public testimony on the agenda item was cut off at 30 minutes and the Board declined to hear the remainder (about three hours) prior to LBUSD management's presentation. (Some board members indicated they would listen to the remainder or view transcripts after the meeting and comments would continue in future updates.)
To view LBUSD staff's presentation and Board members' discussion, launch video below.
LBUSD management's accompanying slides ("Reopening Update") can be viewed here.
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During Board colloquy, it was mentioned that LBUSD teachers/employees will be offered an "opportunity" for the vaccine, but (according to LBUSD) it can't require teachers/staff to take the vaccination.
The Biden and Newsom administrations have both cited declines in recent COVID-19 cases to invite/encourage/pressure local school districts to begin to reopen, initially for elementary school children, with or without the vaccine.
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On Feb. 15, the L.A. County Department of Public Health issued the following statement:
The state permits elementary schools to reopen as soon as we reach an adjusted case rate of 25 per 100,000. We are informing Los Angeles County schools tonight via an emailed letter that we expect to announce we have reached this threshold effective Tuesday, February 16. This encouraging news means that dozens of elementary schools will be permitted to reopen for in-class instruction for students grades TK-6 as early as this week. All schools wishing to reopen must submit plans to the County Department of Public Health and the California Department of Public Health certifying that they have implemented a full range of safety measures to permit a safe reopening...
A Feb. 12 updated advisory from the Centers for Disease Control (source: here) indicates the current level of COVID-19 in Long Beach is within a category CDC describes as "Moderate" to "Higher" risk of transmission
Below is the most recent publicly provided Long Beach data (source: City of LB COVID-19 dashboard linked on LBREPORT>com front page )
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CDC's accompanying text (most recently updated Feb. 12) here) states in pertinent part:
As communities plan safe delivery of in-person instruction in K-12 schools, it is essential to decide when and under what conditions to help protect students, teachers, and staff and slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It is critical for schools to open as safely and as soon as possible, and remain open, to achieve the benefits of in-person learning and key support services. To enable schools to open and remain open, it is important to adopt and consistently implement actions to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 both in schools and in the community. If community transmission is high, students and staff are more likely to come to school while infectious, and COVID-19 can spread more easily in schools. The association between COVID-19 incidence and transmission in school settings and levels of community transmission underscores the importance of controlling disease spread in the community to protect teachers, staff, and students in schools. This means that all community members, students, families, teachers, and school staff should take actions to protect themselves and others where they live, work, learn, and play. In short, success in preventing the introduction and subsequent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in schools is connected to and facilitated by preventing transmission in communities.
K-12 schools should be the last settings to close after all other mitigation measures in the community have been employed, and the first to reopen when they can do so safely. This implies that schools should be prioritized for reopening and remaining open for in-person instruction over nonessential businesses and activities.
Given the likely association between levels of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure in schools, a first step in determining when and how to reopen safely involves assessing the level of community transmission. School administrators, working with local public health officials, should assess the level of risk in the community and the likelihood of a case in a school facility, the likelihood that a case would lead to an outbreak, and the consequences of in-school transmission...
Schools that are open for in-person instruction (either fully open or hybrid) may decide to remain open even at high (red) levels of community transmission. These decisions should be guided by information on school-specific factors such as mitigation strategies implemented, local needs, stakeholder input, the number of cases among students, teachers, and staff, and school experience. A decision to remain open should involve considerations for further strengthening mitigation strategies and continuing to monitor cases to reassess decisions. This should be driven by a "classroom-first" approach; in-person instruction should be prioritized over extracurricular activities including sports and school events, a common source of school transmission, to minimize risk of transmission in schools and protect in-person learning.
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