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Another two local schools will be opening with fully online programs when school starts. Las Lomitas Elementary and Woodside school districts have both announced that their students will learn online from home for the first quarter of the fall semester.
Las Lomitas made its announcement Aug. 5 at a school board meeting, saying that its students will learn virtually until at least October 23, pending San Mateo’s County’s removal from the state’s coronavirus watchlist. San Mateo County must be off the list for 14 days before schools are allowed to open for in-person instruction.
The watchlist is a state-imposed list — announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom July 17 — that tracks counties based on benchmarks for reopening, including positive COVID-19 case rates, hospitalizations and capacity.
Las Lomitas district officials said grades K-6 have some chance of reprieve — if the district were to successfully apply for and earn the California Department of Public Health’s waiver program, which would allow students attend to school on-campus, but has a panoply of requirements and lengthy application. Meanwhile, Las Lomitas sixth through eighth graders will be tethered to their computers at home for the duration of the first quarter as there are no waivers possible for those grade levels.
For Woodside Elementary School District, a statement said that all students will start virtual learning on Monday, August 24, and continue for nine weeks.
Woodside’s district school board is set to present its “final virtual learning and reopening plan” at its upcoming board meeting on Tuesday, August 11 at 3 p.m. via Zoom.
Las Lomitas and Woodside join an array of local school districts — including Menlo Park City, Ravenswood City, Redwood City, and Sequoia Union High School districts — scrambling to keep up with shifting health orders, upset teachers unions and critical parents in the COVID-19 era.
While San Mateo County had evaded the state watchlist for some weeks — and even after it did, San Mateo county’s top health officer Dr. Scott Morrow blasted the county’s placement on it — it landed on the list July 31. And according to state health orders, even if schools manage to open their doors in the coming months, they will need to run students and teachers through regular health and temperature checks, enforce the wearing of face masks for grades three and up (and recommended for K-2), 6 feet of social distancing between students and teachers and between the students themselves.
In the event that school campuses do open up before a long-awaited coronavirus vaccine or treatment arrives, schools may meet resistance from teachers unions — a poll done by the Sequoia District Teachers Association between June 23 and 26 found approximately 46% of teachers said “no” when asked whether they would be comfortable returning to campus. And a July 25 letter sent from the Portola Valley Teachers Association to the district’s school board suggested the union was unlikely to budge in its view that teachers should stay home — even before San Mateo County landed on the state’s watchlist.
The strongest voices from parents, meanwhile, have implored districts to reopen campuses for in-person instruction in the fall, including over 900 public comments submitted to a June 10 school board meeting of the Sequoia Union High School District.
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