How Sacramento County schools will try to stay open — even if coronavirus hits campuses

As public school districts in Sacramento County develop plans to bring students back to campus as early as next month, the county’s top education official said this week that reopening won’t be the issue, “it’s being able to stay open” that will pose the greatest challenge.

Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools Dave Gordon and county public health officials are developing procedures to identify and isolate new coronavirus cases in schools.

Once schools open, a case or two of COVID-19 won’t shut districts down as it did in March, according to county health officials. Districts could close classrooms, hallways or an entire school to prevent further spread of the virus.

If a school suffers an outbreak, Sacramento County health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said the county plans to set up a team that can do mobile testing on site at the school. Gordon said testing and contact tracing will be important additions to district reopening plans.

School “contact tracers” will be able to stop further outbreaks by getting the word out quickly to people who have been exposed to the virus.

“I have said for a long time, reopening is not the problem, it’s being able to stay open,” Gordon said.

If Sacramento County maintains a recent streak of low coronavirus infection rates and reaches the state’s tier 2, or red tier, of coronavirus spread risk for 14 days, schools could be able to return for in-person instruction next month.

Districts across the county are carefully monitoring developments in Sacramento’s COVID-19 numbers. Folsom Cordova Unified is upgrading its air filtration system in anticipation of reopening campuses.

“As we look to and hope for an improvement in the health landscape in Sacramento County, and as we are downgraded to lower tiers, we will still need to ensure our classrooms are equipped with the health and safety retrofits to maintain safety protocols for increased on-campus activity,” Sarah Koligian, the Folsom Cordova superintendent, said. “We are currently in the process of procuring and installing the necessary safety equipment at our sites and classrooms now.”

Elk Grove Unified officials said the availability of testing will determine how quickly schools can open.

“The whole situation as we have seen over the last several months is a moving target,” Gordon said. “The number of cases could decrease, or they could take an uptick. It’s a tough decision because there is no prediction what will happen. You don’t want to open when you have to suddenly close.”

Several schools have reopened in the Sacramento region, either with waivers or in counties with lower infection rates. Very few cases of COVID-19 have been reported since reopenings.

In a school dashboard report, National Public Radio surveyed responses from 47 states with open schools, serving about 200,000 students in-person and online. The report found that schools that have brought students back on campus reported a total of 230 cases — mostly suspected cases — among just under 100,000 students during a two-week period. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers that rate to be of the “highest risk.” That would amount to about 16.4 cases per 100,000 people per day.

Schools reported about 130 cases among 40,000 staff members in total over a two-week period, which is considered to be in a “higher-risk” category. That would be 49 cases per 100,000 people per day.

This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 11:44 AM.