More than 40 school principals in northern California have quarantined after they were exposed to the coronavirus during an in-person meeting held by a local school district.
The quarantine follows news that a pre-symptomatic individual tested positive for COVID-19 within days of a June 19 meeting held by the Santa Clara County Unified School District to to discuss school reopening plans for the fall, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Superintendent Stella Kemp cited the “complexity” of developing a reopening plan as the reason for some meetings to take place in person.
“Of course those meetings are being conducted under the strict guidelines provided to us by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department,” Kemp said, according to the Chronicle.
Her remarks come even as some members of the school board questioned her decision to convene meetings face-to-face due to concerns about spreading the virus.
Santa Clara County is one of the 19 counties that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) placed under new restrictions earlier this week as the state struggles to contain the virus.
State health officials reported 210 new cases of the coronavirus in Santa Clara County on Wednesday, bringing the county’s case total to roughly 4,500 cases. At least 158 people have died from the virus in Santa Clara.
While the Santa Clara County public health order does not make a recommendation about the number of people who can attend a meeting, it does advise that “only those employees performing job duties that they cannot feasibly perform from home may come to a business’s facility to work.”
The superintendent insisted the meeting was necessary, adding that everyone who attended was administered a test, and that to her knowledge, no one else tested positive.
Health officials in Santa Clara County gave schools a guide on Tuesday for restarting in-person instruction in the fall but said they should be ready to resume instruction remotely if coronavirus conditions do not improve.
Trump wants capital punishment for SARS-CoV-2.
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
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12m
Despite record new US case numbers, Trump claims the coronavirus is “getting under control,” then goes on a weird rant about how the virus has “got a life, and we’re putting out that life, because that’s a bad life that we’re talking about.”
The biggest problem with reopening schools this fall isn’t the children, it is the teachers.
And they want to reopen the schools. SMH. Anyone think they have a workable practical plan for what to do when teachers and students test positive? I don’t.
Closer to home (I’m on the East Coast), I’ve watched the situation in Virginia, where Fairfax and Loudoun counties want parents and teachers to commit to either 100% distance learning or part time in-person instruction–without having most of the details ironed out that would give parents and teachers the information they need to make that choice. They have to commit to one choice or the other, and they have to do it by July 10 in Fairfax County and July 13 in Loudoun County. Teachers are not guaranteed to get their choice, at least in Loudoun County (not sure about Fairfax), but they must choose one or the other if they wish to be employed by the school system for the coming year.
I get that the administrators need a long lead time to plan what will undoubtedly be a complex scheduling situation in a fluid environment, but if I were a parent or teacher, I would not be able to make the choice without a lot more information than the administrators have provided. Distance learning might be safest, but that requires at least one parent to be at home, which might not be feasible for the parents. And Fairfax’s distance learning was a big mess in the spring, and it isn’t clear that it was every really fixed to the point that it’s ready for the coming semester.
Monday I submitted my letter of resignation to my principal instead of waiting to retire from teaching next June. Everything I’m seeing about Covid right now makes me way too uncomfortable to return to the classroom- the numbers, the pressure, the behavior of people (which will include students and parents). I just couldn’t do it. And this news item just reinforces that I made the right decision.
(however the next day I got a call to see if I want to do an online middle school teaching assignment …so I may not actually be retired. Waiting to see if that will actually happen.
“Bad hombres”, “Bad apples”, “Bad lives”… it all adds up to a not-so-good term in Office, right Mr. Current Occupant?