In the meantime, the CUSD will start introducing small cohorts of select students
At a meeting last week, the Cloverdale Unified School District (CUSD) gave an update on its distance learning plan. Namely, since the district can’t open for hybrid learning due to the county being in the ‘purple tier’ of the state’s reopening roadmap, it will reevaluate its distance learning plans at the beginning of November. The CUSD will also be pursuing the creation of small learning cohorts for select students.
In addition to hammering out its hybrid learning plans, should districts in the county get the OK to proceed with in-person learning, they are also supposed to be responsible for establishing their own contact tracing for the district and ensuring that teachers and staff have the ability to take COVID-19 tests.
It’s this requirement, Cloverdale Superintendent Betha MacClain said, that’s key to the district’s ability to reopen or request a waiver to reopen at the elementary school year.
“Some of the barriers to reopening at this point obviously are contact tracing — we need to have staff trained, it needs to be done in a consistent manner. We have not yet gotten guidance about what that training would look like,” MacClain said, noting that the Sonoma County Office of Education is preparing to meet and set up a training system for contact tracing. “And then also we have to have access to testing for staff. It would be a kind of revolving testing, so whether or not anyone has symptoms, people would need to be tested and we would have a cluster of staff tested every two weeks and it would rotate.”
According to MacClain, in addition to figuring out the base logistics of putting both systems in place, the district needs to discuss the ongoing cost to the district, whether testing would even be available and how to manage things like testing, where availability of tests may be inconsistent.
Another issue that the district has to grapple with is that it doesn’t have liability insurance for communicable diseases, meaning if someone catches the virus while at school, they could potentially sue the district.
There’s a lot of liability, there’s a lot of risk involved for school districts and I don’t think anybody wants to be the first one to test this,” she said.
Waivers and Cohorts
“There has been a lot of discussion about the elementary school waiver, and what the waiver does is it allows elementary schools to apply for permission to reopen even when the county is in the purple tier. There are a number of stipulations that have to be met — you have to provide proof to the county that you have met with your bargaining units and reached an agreement, it’s only applicable to elementary because elementary students are considered less likely to spread COVID-19,” MacClain said.
Instead of pursuing a waiver to open its elementary school, MacClain said that the district first wants to focus on establishing small learning cohorts for “high-needs students,” including special education students, English learners and seniors who are at risk. Additionally, the district is hoping to start sports conditioning and activities like clubs.
“Right now within the county, the option of the waiver hasn’t really been tested yet, in part because Dr. Herrington, the superintendent of the county, and Dr. Mase, our public health official, don’t recommend reopening any program, any school when we’re in the purple tier,” MacClain said. “And, it’s difficult for instance in Cloverdale, where our case rate appears to be very high. We are getting close to a case rate that would allow us to consider a waiver — it does require the consent and agreement of bargaining units and then it has to go to the public health officials. You have to make sure that you also have consulted with parents, you have to make sure and we already have our reopening plan published, and also you have to have our contact tracing and our testing protocols in place.”
Districts in the county don’t need special permission from the county’s health department to establish small learning cohorts of students with special needs or who are at elevated risk due to distance learning.
“I would stress that this is not something that the board or the district embrace,” MacClain said, referring to the local, regional and state-level recommendations that students continue with distance learning through December. “We believe that the best thing for kids is to be back at school, but this (COVID-19) is what’s going on right now in the county.”
However, given the various requirements around contact tracing and testing, MacClain is hoping that reevaluating distance learning in November will allow for the district to have more current survey data from parents, some contact tracing training under its belt and more time to work with teacher and staff bargaining units.
“I’m making a recommendation, given our current status, that we stay in distance learning until the first week of November because the state may, at that point, be able to offer some support for contact tracing and testing. We would reassess in that first week in November,” MacClain said.
The CUSD Board of Trustees largely supported the timeline put forth by MacClain, with all of them noting that they believe the best thing for students in the district is to have them back in school. Trustee Todd Lands was absent from the meeting.
“I support the timeline. The key things I want to make sure we consider are what’s the impact on our faculty and staff of going in and out of distance, hybrid, these different models. It’s very hard to keep switching gears and takes energy away from teaching. We have to consider families and whether they’re going to send their kids back. There was some portion that wasn’t going to send their kids back, but it seems like we’ve addressed that, which I’m very happy with,” Trustee Preston Addison said. “I think really the most important consideration is students’ needs — educational, social, mental, emotional — and I think our kids need to be back in school, back with each other, back exercising together, learning together, all of that. I think that’s the most important one — what are the needs of our students.”
