Clovis Unified delays return of in-person instruction. Here’s why and its latest plans
Clovis Unified students who were looking to soon return to the classroom for the first time this school year will have to keep waiting at least a few more weeks.
Clovis Unified School District announced Friday evening that students of all grade levels who were scheduled to phase back into the classroom in January will not be able to receive in-person instruction until at least Feb. 1.
Thus, those students must continue to learn via online through the end of the month.
The delay of students returning to campuses was extended on the advice of the Fresno County Department of Public Health amid the continued surge of confirmed cases of the coronavirus within the county.
Meanwhile, students who were already attending in-person instruction for any reason will continue to do so, the district added.
“We recognize the need for students to return to campus as soon as possible, and have worked to implement extensive health and safety measures to create a healthy on-site environment for learning,” CUSD wrote. “At the same time, we are relying on direction from local health officials to guide the pace at which we return students to campus within the larger context of community-wide COVID conditions.
“Our recent delay in bringing additional students back on campus is occurring under direction of local health officials who need to focus their work on community-based mitigation efforts, which are administratively impacted by the addition of students to school campuses around Fresno County because of reporting requirements included in school health and safety plans.”
Small groups of Clovis Unified School District elementary students returned to campuses in November, with CUSD’s initial plan to bring back nearly all elementary school students by Jan. 19.
CUSD high school and middle school students, meanwhile, were initially scheduled to return to in-person instruction Jan. 4. That timeline was previously pushed back to Jan. 19, under the guidance from public health officials.
Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell said the district wanted to announce its delayed plans for in-person instruction to help families and teachers with planning.
“We are sensitive to the needs of our parents and staff to have time to plan for this next phase of our return to on-campus instruction,” O’Farrell said in a news release. “Hearing from our partners at the public health department that their existing direction to schools is unlikely to change before next week, we are taking steps today to share news that the implementation of our next phase of in-person instruction must be further delayed.”
As of Friday, there have been 72,557 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Fresno County with 711 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began in March.
There currently are 662 patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 and six intensive-care-unit beds available, according to data provided by Fresno County.
Local health officials have expressed concern that the county could see an increase in coronavirus infections and possibly deaths in January due to people having ignored preventative guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the holidays.
Clovis Unified said it will continue to provide updates on the status when students could return to the classroom, and added that school sites also will provide updates and information to families prior to Feb. 1 as needed to address unique situations existing at a given school site.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 9:55 PM with the headline "Clovis Unified delays return of in-person instruction. Here’s why and its latest plans."