Confusion, changing mandates. Here’s the path for how Sacramento schools can reopen

The new school year is utterly exasperating for parents and school officials in the new coronavirus world as they struggle to make plans amid ever-changing state rules – rules that can differ by the week and by the county, depending how well each county is doing in efforts to suppress COVID-19.

Sacramento County? Infection rates remain high and schools are currently all physically closed, adhering to the guidelines ordered by the county’s cautious public health officials.

El Dorado County? Virus infection numbers are low, so it started the school year with in-person instruction.

Placer County? School districts are cautiously planning to reopen as they were just removed off the state’s coronavirus watchlist.

When will Sacramento schools be able to do the same?

When one of two things happen: falling off the state watchlist, or being granted a waiver from the county.

Here is an updated primer on the fast-changing situation:

Getting off the watchlist

The state has set up what it calls a monitoring or watchlist of counties struggling to lower COVID infection numbers.

Schools in counties on the state watchlist are unable to reopen unless they obtain a special waiver from local health officials (more on that below.)

Counties are placed on the watchlist if they have a testing positivity rate of more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents in 14 days.

With 145 new cases per 100,000 residents, Sacramento County remains on the list. Yolo County is on the list, too. El Dorado County has managed to stay off the list. Placer County, where infection numbers have improved, was just removed from the list this week.

Once a county is removed from the watchlist, the state requires it to be off the list for 14 consecutive days before allowing K-12 campuses to reopen for in-person learning. For colleges and universities, the county must be off the watchlist for three days.

Placer County is entering the second day of being off the watchlist. Officials at William Jessup University in Rocklin said the school will offer in-person instruction. And school districts, such as Rocklin Unified, are just beginning to revisit their reopening plans.

Schools will still offer distance learning options for students who wish to stay home. But school officials say a shutdown could easily happen again if coronavirus cases spike again. Families need to be prepared for on again, off again in-person learning.

The waiver process

Schools in counties on the watchlist, but have fewer than 200 new cases per 100,000 residents reported in the most recent two-week stretch, can apply for a waiver to seek earlier reopening.

Waivers only allow students from transitional kindergarten through sixth grade to return to campus. Students grades 7 to 12 must wait for the county’s removal from the watchlist before school officials can open their classrooms.

But a statewide data glitch, which has now been resolved, froze the watchlist process. It came at a problematic time, in the days or weeks before districts and campuses statewide were scheduled to begin the 2020-21 academic year.

Some counties, such as Orange County, are now processing those waivers.

Sacramento County has 145 new cases per 100,000 residents, allowing it to qualify for the waiver application.

But Sacramento public health officials told schools in a letter on Thursday not to expect the county to grant waivers before mid-September.

“We are still seeing concerning levels of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Sacramento County and believe it is not advisable for schools to conduct in-person instruction at this time,” read the letter. “All schools (TK-12), both public and private, in Sacramento County must utilize a distance learning model until further notice.”

County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson told The Sacramento Bee that health officials need extra weeks to assess how much progress the county is making in reducing what has been surging number of COVID-19 cases over the past three months.

Several private schools, including the Catholic School Department of the Diocese of Sacramento, are waiting for the waiver process to begin again so that schools can apply for reopening. The Diocese has already reopened campuses in counties that were not on the state’s watchlist.

The Diocese has 10 schools in the county, four of which are high schools which cannot reopen with a waiver.

Lincoln Snyder, Executive Director and Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Diocese of Sacramento, told The Bee that it will wait for more directions from county health officials, and that the Diocese is prepared to reopen.

Notice to schools

Sacramento public health officials sent notices to public and private schools on Thursday reiterating that students are not permitted on their school campuses unless for emergency mental health counseling, English language assessments or special education assessments.

The county is not allowing schools to support in-person gatherings on campus or otherwise, school personnel home visits, or extra curricular activities. Any laptop or book distributions must be done through a drive-thru model.

The letter comes days after the public health department ordered Capital Christian School to close its campus after the school was allowing its students to study in the classrooms. Capital Christian school officials said they were operating with a child care license, allowing them to bring students together on campus. But county officials said the school was violating state and local coronavirus orders by doing so.

Dr. Peter Beilenson said he visited the school for 45 minutes Thursday, touring with the principal and talking about COVID issues. He said the school appears to have made a good effort in reopening with safety in mind, but he told the principal, “It is simply, you can’t do instruction activity in the building while you (the county) are on the watch list. It was very amicable.”

Beilenson said he told school officials they could apply for a waiver in mid-September to allow students up to 5th grade to reoccupy classes for instruction.

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Confusion, changing mandates. Here’s the path for how Sacramento schools can reopen."