Elementary Schools Reopening in Riverside County
March 10, 2021
February 26th Riverside county Office of Education released a notice that this county is now below the 25 per 100,000 thresholds that kept students k-6 from attending in-person schooling. After a prep day, all employees were asked to return to their work sites. This return to school did not come without a series of important precautions. Our district needed to remain under the 25 limit for five consecutive days as well as receiving approval from several safety plans and the state health department. Once the county approved the return to schools, the appeal was sent to the state. Approval was pending for around seven days and then the return to school was confirmed for Riverside county.
In order to further ensure safety and low COVID rates schools will schedule afternoon and morning classes which will limit children’s exposure to one another. As far as high schools and middle schools reopening the rates must be down to 7 per 100,000 cases. As of 3-9-2020, we are at 11.6. If we continue to drop at this rate students who opted for traditional learning will be back in school relatively soon. Despite this fact under the current plan students; at Santiago high school at least, will only see each teacher once every two weeks, which severely limits instructional time. If the school board chooses to continue with this plan we could potentially be in each class more frequently as COVID rates continue to drop, however, this is all theoretical for the time being. Hopefully, as time goes on more information will be released regarding this topic.