California health officials have granted more than 100 waivers to allow districts and schools — mostly in Southern California — to reopen for in-class instruction in counties where only remote online instruction is allowed due to coronavirus outbreaks.
Of the 113 schools and districts that the California Department of Public Health consulted with local authorities on waiver requests, all but four were approved, according to the list the agency posted Wednesday afternoon.
Only two of those were in the Bay Area, both of them in Santa Clara County: Moreland School District, which local officials disclosed last week, and Sunnyvale Christian School, which was cleared to open classrooms on Thursday.
The four schools whose waivers were denied were all in San Bernardino County: Ontario Christian, Apple Valley Christian and New Life Christian, which were denied after consultation with the agency Aug. 21, and Valley Preparatory Academy, denied after an Aug. 12 consultation.
The waivers come amid a roiling national debate over reopening schools, pitting concerns of many parents that online teaching isn’t as effective and will rob their kids of a proper education and those of many teachers and others that the risk of spreading COVID-19 is just too great to bring students back to class.
After the pandemic forced rapid school closures in the spring that led to a generally dismal online distance learning experience for most public school students, California officials had urged schools to prepare for in-class instruction in the fall with physical distancing, mask-wearing, hand-washing and other public health practices.
But after a surge of summer cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 17 said schools in counties that the state put on a “monitoring list” due to worsening COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations must start the year with online-only education. They could only reopen classes after the county has been off the list for 14 days.
The 35 counties on the monitoring list include most urban areas of California. In the Bay Area, only Napa County is off the list, and along the coast, the only counties south of Humboldt off the list are Santa Cruz, Orange and San Diego.
In addition to school reopening restrictions, listed counties cannot open places of worship, fitness centers, salons, malls and nonessential offices for indoor use.
Newsom however said elementary schools in those counties — whose younger students are least susceptible to COVID-19 illness and most likely to struggle with online instruction — could apply for waivers through county health departments after consulting with parents, teachers and the state health department.
Sunnyvale Christian School said that while it was the second in Santa Clara County granted a waiver, it may become the first in the Bay Area to actually bring students back into the classroom starting Thursday. Moreland School District had delayed its in-person reopening as a result of poor air quality in the Bay Area from wildfires.
The Sunnyvale private school will welcome students at staggered drop-off times and locations. Once at the school, they will be screened for symptoms every day. The school will require all faculty and staff, along with students in second grade and above, to wear face masks at all times, according to its plan.
During the day, students will be kept in stable, socially distanced groups, and are required to spend nearly half of the day outside. The school will also require its staff to be tested for COVID-19 by their primary care providers at least once every two months.
Moreland, which serves about 4,400 students across seven schools, plans to initially bring back 168 kids in a mix of elementary grades. The students will be broken up into cohorts of 12, with two sets of a dozen on each campus, with physical distancing, mask requirements and designated bathrooms for each group to help limit the risk of COVID-19.
Dozens of other Bay Area schools have sought waivers as well.
A significant number of the granted waivers on the state list are in counties where they may not be needed, including 40 in Orange County and 42 in San Diego County, both of which came off the monitoring list Sunday.
