When will Fresno-area schools reopen amid COVID-19? It could be ‘weeks, not months’

Fresno County’s top health official said Fresno-area schools could begin applying for waivers to reopen in a matter of weeks despite California’s coronavirus watchlist.

But that’s not a promise and Fresno residents will have a lot of work to do if that’s going to happen.

Thirty-four California counties remained on the state’s coronavirus watchlist as of Wednesday, including Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties, and most Central and Southern California.

That means schools must remain shuttered in those regions, according to an order from Gov. Gavin Newsom. Only when counties have been off the watchlist for 14 consecutive days can schools begin to reopen.

To get off the watchlist, counties must have coronavirus cases under control at a rate of 100 or fewer cases per 100,000 people. It must also have decreasing hospitalizations and a certain percentage of ICU beds and ventilators available.

Most recently, Amador, Mono, and Orange counties have dropped off the list, and the larger San Diego County has too.

But Fresno County is still hovering above that marker, with around 224 cases per 100,000, according to the California Department of Public Health. And August is proving to be the deadliest month yet in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Newsom recently announced that some groups of students could return to campus despite the mandated closures, including special education students, English learners, and homeless students. The state health department released guidelines on Tuesday explaining how those students could return to campuses.

The rules focus on cohorts, or groups of no more than 14 students and two teachers, who will remain together throughout the day, and not intermingle with anyone outside of their group. The group would follow all the usual pandemic recommendations — social distancing, wearing masks, and handwashing.

The guidelines cover schools, day camps, daycares, youth groups, and any other organization that takes care of children.

The local health department has already been working with school districts to make sure that certain students can get on-campus learning, according to Dr. Rais Vohra, interim health officer for the Fresno County Department of Public Health.

“We know that it’s a real hardship to do distance learning at this time,” Vohra said. “We’re really trying to guide people as best as we can with safety in mind, but also allow them to achieve those goals. We have a lot of conversations ongoing with a lot of different institutions about how to make that happen.”

When can Fresno-area schools apply for COVID-19 waivers?

Vohra said he’s optimistic that the health department might soon grant waivers for elementary schools to reopen despite the county’s watchlist status.

“To me, that’s really exciting,” he said on Tuesday during a news briefing. “I think that will really help us get on the road to kind of normalizing what our life should look like.”

The state recommends waivers for sixth-grade students and younger only for counties with fewer than 200 cases per 100,000 people. According to Vohra, Fresno County remains above that metric but could get there in as little as a few weeks.

Two schools have already applied for such waivers: Hume Lake Charter School and Big Creek Elementary School, both in rural mountain regions in eastern Fresno County that have not seen high infection rates.

“We’ve had some very productive conversations with them,” Vohra said. “We were trying to flesh out exactly what their plans are.”

Some schools have decided not to wait for the ‘OK’ from the state. Immanuel Schools, a private K-12 in Reedley, defied the county and state’s order to remain closed and won its first legal hurdle on Tuesday to stay open.

The school’s attorney, Jennifer Bursch, argued that preventing in-person teaching was a violation of the state’s constitution, and claimed that Immanuel students and staff had achieved herd immunity, based on a study done by one of the parents, a pathologist.

A Fresno County Superior Court judge denied an injunction to force the school closed. But the court will take up the matter again on Sept. 15. Immanuel is also part of a lawsuit before the California State Supreme Court.

Central Valley Christian Schools in Visalia plans to open Sept. 8 under the guise of a day camp.

Also, in Tulare County, Outside Creek Elementary opened its campus for its students.

The Tulare County Department of Public Health was aware of schools opening, and said the department is discouraging “any effort to congregate children from multiple households as it poses a significant spread of COVID-19.”

“Although under current guidance (day camps are) allowed in the State of California, Tulare County Public Health does not have any regulatory authority or oversight of Day Camps, and therefore cannot approve or deny a school from operating as such,” said Carrie Monteiro, spokesperson for the Tulare County Department of Public Health, last week.

In Merced and Sacramento, schools are also deciding to open.

How soon could Fresno students return to campus?

Despite his optimism that schools could soon reopen, Vohra said closures are the right thing to do.

And while Vohra said it might not take much longer for waiver approvals, he’s also working on a public health order demanding all schools remain shuttered.

Vohra is also keeping an eye on other counties that are similar to Fresno, to see how they have fared.

“It’s heartening that other counties that have experienced an increased number of case counts and a real capacity restriction in their medical facilities the way that we have here in Fresno County, have gone through a surge and are now on the other side of that and are now getting off of the watchlist,” he said Tuesday.

Vohra said although hospitalizations are falling, hospitals are still experiencing shortages of staffing and bed capacity. It’s exacerbated by other crises in the state, such as the wildfires.

“The other issue is just the test positivity rate,” he said. “We’ve got to get that down.”

He said it’s about 10% in Fresno County, but he would like to see it below 5%.

“I really believe in our community’s ability to come together and really meet these metrics,” he said. “So I’m very optimistic that if everyone keeps doing the things that we’ve already seen people start doing so much, which is using a mask, staying home, using social distancing, trying to do everything outdoors as much as possible, and washing their hands much more frequently ... hopefully, it’ll be a matter of weeks, not months, that we can leave the watchlist, and then really start to talk about reopening sectors.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 8:58 AM.