Fresno-area schools haven’t had major COVID-19 outbreaks. What it means for reopening plans

While about 35,000 Fresno-area students are attending in-person classes at least part time, the coronavirus pandemic remains too dangerous to allow more young people back onto campuses, Fresno County health officials said Friday during a live Q&A with The Fresno Bee Education Lab.

However, evidence is growing that it could be safe when cases slow if the campus community follows protocols, such as distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands.

Each school in Fresno County must have a reopening plan laying out its health and safety rules.

“With kids, they do get COVID, they can transmit COVID, but neither of these are at the rates we see with adults,” said Dr. John Zweifler, a family doctor and consultant with the Fresno County Health Department.

“If we really wanted to be 100% safe, we could all stay locked up in our rooms all day, and I don’t think that’s really acceptable to most of us,” he said. “On the other hand, if we throw off our masks and go to the Super Bowl, we’re going to have literally millions of Americans who are going to be dying, and that’s not acceptable either.”

Clovis Unified schools have brought back most elementary students who wanted to return under a hybrid model, according to Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell. There have been 303 cases in the district as of Friday. She estimates the number of people on all campuses to be about 20,000 each day.

“We’ve had one after-school program that did have to shut down for a short period of time because we had some staff members interact with each other outside of the workday,” she said. But O’Farrell has said she believes the district could add more students safely because of the plans the district has in place.

“It’s a very well-oiled machine at this point,” she said.

David Luchini, assistant director with the Fresno County Department of Public Health, also said there had been an instance of transmission within school staff members in the county.

“It just points out that that we need to follow all our basic protocol,” he said. “Based on what we’ve seen with our experiences here, when schools follow their plans correctly, it went pretty well.”

The health department has stopped allowing more students onto campuses following a surge of cases in the region over the holidays and into January.

But the pressure to open schools has been felt by school administrators, especially after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his Safe Schools for All plan, which aimed to bring back the state’s youngest students by February.

Newsom indicated Thursday that he was willing to negotiate the ambitious plan, as the date nears without legislative approval to implement it, according to Ed Source.

When the health department allows students to begin returning, it will still be up to each school when to let students in, according to Hank Gutierrez, deputy superintendent at the office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.

Fresno Unified School District’s reopening plan won’t bring students back to in-person learning until the county reaches the orange Tier 3 in the state’s color-coded “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” of coronavirus safety measures.

Central Unified School District will wait to bring back students in grades K-6 until the county is in the red Tier 2, and students in grades 7-12 will return when the county is in the orange Tier 3.

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.