Nearly a year after school campuses in Sonoma County were closed in the face of the growing coronavirus pandemic, classroom doors in a small number of schools are scheduled to open on Monday.
That’s when Sonoma Charter School is scheduled to open its doors to kindergarten and first and second grade students. On Wednesday, Liberty School, in northern Petaluma, is planning to bring back students and staff.
They are likely to be followed by four more schools and districts that have received approval from the Sonoma County Health Services Department to bring students and staff back to campus at modified times and entirely different routines.
“It’s like the first day of school, but on another planet,” said Marc Elin, director of the Sonoma Charter School, with 215 students. “I’m thrilled. This is just good news.”
The Sonoma County Health Services Department has COVID Security Plans for 24 schools and districts across Sonoma County. The plans of six schools, including those of Sonoma Charter and Liberty School, have been approved, paving the way for schools to reopen for modified face-to-face classes.
These schools and districts join the 10 schools – nine of which are private – that were cleared to reopen from October, provided the state has approved its security protocols. This exemption program was halted in late November, as virus cases began to increase across the state, but schools already cleared were allowed to continue.
At a community meeting on Wednesday, county public health officer Dr. Sundari Mase described the security plans of the six schools and districts that were authorized to open as “stellar”
“Very soon we will announce the reopening of more schools,” she said.
Also on Wednesday, Sonoma County’s largest school district, Santa Rosa City Schools, approved plans to bring its approximately 5,000 elementary school students back on April 1 and 2 and its nearly 11,000 high school students from of April 26 and 29.
The Santa Rosa plan is based in part on the anticipated shift in the county from the purple layer, the most restrictive stage of the state’s color-coded coronavirus reopening plan, and to red, which indicates substantial but not widespread transmission, of the virus.
Once in red, the rules for returning employees and students to campuses change and schools and districts no longer need approval from the county health department to reopen. A change to red would also pave the way for returning county elementary and high school students to the classroom – something that was not allowed in the purple layer.
In the meantime, the Santa Rosa COVID Security Plan remains in the county review process. The reviews were received by the county on February 23. A county response to these changes is expected on Thursday.
The Windsor Unified School District has a plan submitted and also owes a county response to its revisions on Thursday. The county’s response to changes submitted by the Wilmar Union school district, west of Petaluma, is expected on Tuesday and Two Rock Elementary, also west of Petaluma, is expected to receive news of its revisions on Wednesday.
If a school opens for at least one complete series for face-to-face instruction, that school can remain open and continue its reopening strategy, even if Sonoma County falls back into the purple category.
“Once that happens and schools are opened, even if we went back to the purple level, schools would remain open,” said Mase.
Like many proposed back-to-school plans being considered by the county, the Sonoma Charter School will open on Monday with face-to-face classes only for kindergarten, first and second grades. After spring break on March 29, the older grades will begin to return in a part-time, face-to-face distance learning format, said Elin.
But on Monday, campus doors will open to a class of kindergarten students who have never seen the inside of their classroom, as well as first and second grade students, for whom life on campus can be little more than a vague memory.
Since each of the three returning grades has only one class of students, school officials were able to divide them into two stable groups that will attend an entire day of school four days a week, said Elin.
“These children were exposed to the screen for a long time,” said Elin. “What we love about having them back on campus is that they are in a more traditional model, a more physical model. They are no longer looking at the screens, they are looking at an adult ”.
You can contact editor Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or [email protected]. On Twitter @benefield.