Sacramento City Unified schools to close temporarily due to coronavirus concerns
The Sacramento City Unified School District is closing all of its schools starting Monday through Wednesday, district officials announced Thursday night.
The news came when a substitute teacher tested positive for COVID-19 less than two weeks after teaching for a day at Sutterville Elementary School.
District officials are encouraging medically fragile students and staff to stay home Friday. Attendance is voluntary for everyone else.
About 80 schools in the city with a total of more than 40,000 students will be closed. District officials said they will use that time to disinfect campuses. The district on Tuesday will inform the Sac City community if more time is needed to get campuses ready or if students can return to school on March 19.
Superintendent Jorge Aguilar announced the move as a preventative step to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. Aguilar said the unnamed teacher had volunteered to be a substitute at Sutterville Elementary on Feb. 28.
Aguilar learned of the positive test at about 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, when he was notified by county health officials. District officials then mobilized to retrace the steps of the teacher, get the school disinfected and to confer with county officials before announcing the situation to the public Wednesday night.
“We take this very seriously,” Aguilar said. “We are focused primarily to make sure we are caring for the well being of our students.”
Despite the positive test, Dr. Peter Beilenson, head of Sacramento County’s Department of Health Services, determined that Sutterville Elementary could remain open and classes took place Thursday.
“Based on guiding principles on COVID-19 mitigation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released today, and the circumstances of this single confirmed case of COVID-19, the SCPH is not recommending that this school be closed at this time,” Beilenson said in a news release Wednesday.
“Earlier today, The Sacramento City Teachers Association and SEIU jointly requested the superintendent close schools to give the district time to put a structure in place to address the issues related to the coronavirus,” teachers union officials said.
About 500 of the 2,500 members of the Sacramento City Teachers Association are at least 60 years old.
Like county health officers in Los Angeles, Beilenson’s office maintained that county schools could remain open this week. On Saturday, Elk Grove Unified – the largest district in Northern California – announced it shutting down this week by moving up its spring break. Elk Grove Unified became the first district in California to shut down as a preventative step as coronavirus cases proliferated around the state.
The move was criticized by some as premature, including in The Sacramento Bee, but that was Saturday. By Thursday, coronavirus related events in California were moving at warp speed.
As Sac City officials deliberated over their decision on Thursday, the San Francisco Unified School District announced it was closing for three weeks just a day after saying it would stay open. And in Los Angeles, pressure mounted among elected officials to close LAUSD despite the position of county health officials that Los Angeles schools could stay open.
In Sacramento, Aguilar said he and his team struggled with differing guidelines between the county, state and the CDC.
After Gov. Gavin Newsom announced updated health guidelines late Wednesday that called for no gatherings of more than 250 people and for individuals to maintain 6 feet of social distance, district officials began to contemplate the need to revisit the discussion of what do in order to ensure the safety of students. Some of the bigger high schools in the district have more than 250 people together for meals or school events.
“Because of the declaration by the governor around social distancing, I think it’s important that we come back and think how we apply this,” Aguilar said.
Public health officers and educators, as a rule, do not advocate for the closure of public schools. Unlike big-time sporting events, which are financed by the discretionary income of their patrons, public schools provide essential services to the public.
It is at these schools where some kids get their most nutritious meals of the day. It is where working families can leave their children. To accommodate students dependent on school meals, Aguilar said the district will continue to feed students even while campuses are closed.
Universities are better equipped to teach their students virtually, as Sacramento State announced it would do for the remainder of the spring semester. But in SCUSD, for example, there is a vast digital divide that makes online instruction impossible for all students.
“We know that not everyone has access to a computer in their homes,” Aguilar said. “That adds another layer of complexity.”
Because of these complexities, educators look upon school closures as a last resort.
School officials in other school districts, including San Juan Unified and in Placer County, discussed online learning, but posed the question if students truly had equitable access if it was implemented.
“Not everyone has internet at home,” said Michelle Eklund, chief communications officer for the Placer County Office of Education. “How do you read a book and answer a question? How do you make sure that our most vulnerable students are getting the education they need? A lot more goes into distance learning than just the internet and a device.”
For example, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States has been King County, Washington, and Seattle. And up until Tuesday, health officers there had not advocated for the closure of schools for the reasons already cited here.
But that changed Thursday, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that all K-12 public and private schools in three counties will close for more than a month to help slow the progression of COVID-19 coronavirus in the region.
Like Newsom, Inslee also announced guidelines for the temporary prohibition of public gatherings of more than 250 people.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 7:04 PM.
