How life in California schools will look different this fall due to the coronavirus crisis

One thing seems clear: the experience of attending school in California will be vastly different when life in the state begins a return to normalcy.

State officials are discussing several different scenarios for opening schools up this fall, including how to physically distance students from one another. Scenarios under discussion include possibly staggering students and class schedules, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a media call Tuesday to discuss the state’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

The considerations were announced during a press conference where Newsom outlined six critical indicators the state will consider before modifying the stay-at-home order as California continues to bend the curve in preventing the coronavirus. More than 22,000 people in California have tested positive for coronavirus – including 77 since just Monday in Sacramento County, the largest single day increase since the coronavirus pandemic began.

“We need to get our kids back to school. I need to get my kids back to school,” Newsom said. “We need to do it in a safe way so kids are not going to school, getting infected and then coming back home and then infecting grandma and grandpa. So we have to be very vigilant in that respect.”

Newsom however said while officials hope that the number of cases are reduced in the coming months, life in California will not return to normal until the state reaches herd immunity and a vaccine is created.

Summer mass gatherings with hundreds of people are unlikely, and schools will return in the fall with modifications.

“Large scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers all together across every conceivable difference, healthy or otherwise, is not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations,” Newsom said.

Newsom said conversations are currently happening with the California Department of Education and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. School officials will work to make modifications to continue social distancing even after stay-at-home orders are lifted.

Newsom gave possible scenarios:

• Students can be staggered. School officials can work with labor unions to create a new school day in which some students can attend classes in cohorts: some attend classes in the morning, and some attend classes in the afternoon.
• The way schools conduct assemblies, physical education and recess will need to be revisited.
• Schools, parks and playgrounds will be deeply sanitized and disinfected.

When new recommendations or orders will be given by the state is unclear, but officials on Tuesday stressed that there will be a new normal in the coming months to prevent future surges of the coronavirus.

This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 2:38 PM with the headline "How life in California schools will look different this fall due to the coronavirus crisis."