What Newsom’s COVID stay-at-home order means for schools in the Sacramento region

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s regional stay-at-home order, announced Thursday, will allow schools that are already open to keep their campuses open for students.

The orders would close “non-essential” businesses, but would prioritize open schools as the state attempts to slow down the coronavirus surge. Currently, the no region meets the threshold for the new order.

The Sacramento region on Monday had 24% capacity left in its intensive care units. If the Greater Sacramento area drops to 15%, the open campuses will be exempt from the stay-at-home order.

Most public school students in Sacramento County are still in school through distance learning. But about 5,000 students in grades TK through fifth at Folsom Cordova Unified returned back to campus in November in a hybrid model, and several Sacramento County school districts have small cohorts of at-risk and special education students on their campuses.

Those schools, along with private schools and districts in Placer and El Dorado counties that have also been back in session, will remain open under the new order.

“Infection and transmission on campus is rare when everyone is following the rules,” said Lincoln Snyder, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Sacramento, who oversees 36 elementary schools in 11 counties.

‘School is the best place for kids to be right now’

The diocese reopened many of its campuses with state waivers, and continues to enforce reopening guidelines and policies on its campuses. After California witnessed a surge in COVID-19 cases, recently mandated that students and staff who attended large gatherings or traveled over the Thanksgiving holiday temporarily return to the district’s distance learning program. And several schools in the diocese have started offering rapid testing to students, costing the schools about $25 per test.

“School is the best place for kids to be right now,” Snyder said. “Testing is a way that we can make the schools even safer.”

Public and private schools across the region have seen cases on campus. Private schools as a whole reported nearly 40 cases to the Sacramento County Public Health Department, including 20 students.

In November, 13 students and 12 staff members in Folsom Cordova Unified tested positive for COVID-19, prompting several quarantines. Schools have not closed due to COVID-19 cases. The school board recently approved criteria for closing a school based on operational and staffing metrics: when 5% of staff quarantines, district officials review the situation based on criteria, and the school principal determines if a school can remain open for in-person hybrid instruction.

What will this mean for closed campuses?

It’s unclear if the stay-at-home orders would delay when school districts with students on campus plan to return to a longer, traditional in-person schedule. Currently, most public school students attending classes on campus are only learning in-person for two or three hours, and some are beginning to schedule plans to reopen campuses for longer hours of instruction in the coming months.

Newsom addressed some of these concerns directly to parents in his news conference.

“I’ve got four young children, and they are doing distance learning, because their school shut down, opened very briefly, and shut down again,” he said. “Child care is very, very challenging.”

With schools and school districts across the Sacramento region now scheduled to reopen campuses in early January, Sacramento County would need to return to the red tier by Dec. 22 — just says before Christmas, a time when families continue gather to celebrate the holiday or their time off, potentially allowing coronavirus cases to surge even more after the Thanksgiving holiday.

And Newsom’s stay-at-home orders could further jeopardize January reopening plans for school districts such as San Juan Unified and Elk Grove Unified.

San Juan Unified, which planned to return on Jan. 5, announced Thursday that the district will continue distance learning, as it is unlikely the county will reach the red tier before the planned opening.

“This is not where we hoped or expected to be,” Superintendent Kent Kern said. “It is incredibly disappointing. Our teachers and staff have been working hard to be ready for a return to in-person learning and will continue those efforts so that when it’s possible, we can quickly and safely welcome students back to classrooms.”

The district will transition to in-person learning after the county has been in red tier for two weeks.

“We are eager to see students and staff return to classrooms and we are committed to ensuring that is done in a manner that protects the health and safety of our entire community,” San Juan Unified officials told The Sacramento Bee. “We will continue to closely monitor and follow the health guidance of Sacramento County and California Department of Public Health officials as we work to safely meet the needs of our students, families and staff members.”

This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 1:29 PM.