School Reopening Plans
- fionacsweet
- Nov 17, 2020
- 2 min read
The Santa Rosa City Schools School Board had a meeting last night where they discussed new reopening plans for January. District officials presented an updated plan that would allow kindergarten through third graders to return to campuses between late January and late February. This timeline depends on whether Sonoma County is able to move from the purple tier (most restrictive COVID-19 tier) to the red tier. This could happen by the end of the month. A final draft of this document will go before the board on December 14th.
This plan includes two options for hybrid models starting with the youngest grades and eventually phasing upwards. One schedule would have everyone on campus from 8 to 12:50 two days a week and the rest distance learning. The second option would have everyone on campus four days a week either in the mornings from 8 to 10:30 or 12:00 to 2:30. Teachers are split in their preference.
Santa Rosa City Schools has hired a COVID-19 coordinator who will be in charge of staff-run contact tracing in the case of a positive case.
In a survey sent out to parents, 36% of 7000 respondents said they want to keep their student off campus even if a hybrid option is offered. If that number stays steady, district officials would have to assign more teachers to the distance option.
The real problem comes when trying to transition middle and high schools to a hybrid model. We move between six classes a day, so we come in contact with hundreds of students. To address this, Dr. Sundari Mase confirmed that Sonoma County is working on recommendations for schedules that would limit students to two cohorts (ie 2 classes).
It's all very confusing, but I hope we will have more answers after the next School Board meeting. I'm personally very tired, so I think that this break for Thanksgiving could not come at a better time.
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