Sacramento County students are back on campus. But what will school look like in the fall?

After months of preparation, most Sacramento County schools are reopening, bringing thousands of students back to campus – at least part time.

As COVID-19 infection rates drop, new recommendations are made by public health experts to reduce distancing between students’ desks and vaccines become readily available, schools are beginning to welcome students back for additional days. It’s a steady move toward normalcy.

The changes are leaving parents to wonder when their schools will return to a “normal” pre-pandemic schedule.

Brenda Holloway-Donegan of Folsom said the uncertainty feels like a rollercoaster ride. Her children, in grades seventh and ninth, returned to their Folsom Cordova Unified campuses earlier this month.

“I really don’t know what I will do in the fall. It’s been a challenging day-to-day decision for me,” she said. “It’s created so many anxieties. I am hoping that if we can get into a norm, both of my kids will go back full time in person. But truthfully I just don’t know what we will do at this time.”

Local school and health officials say that with the pandemic remaining unpredictable, it may be too soon to tell whether Sacramento County schools will switch to full schedules when the new school year begins.

Once schools reopen, modifications in school schedules are not dependent on what COVID-19 tier a county is in. School boards can vote to add additional instructional minutes on campus for students, and even return to a full five-day, traditional model. Placer and El Dorado county school districts have already voted to bring students back for additional minutes and additional days, while the counties were in the state’s purple tier for coronavirus risk.

Thousands of students in Folsom Cordova Unified, Natomas Unified, Placer and El Dorado counties, and at dozens of private schools have been back on campus for weeks, while other school districts in Sacramento County welcomed students back this month. Sacramento City Unified will resume in-person instruction beginning with younger grades on April 8.

Many school officials are cautiously optimistic students will return to full schedules in the fall.

That’s exactly what Folsom Cordova Unified parent Bryan Greenwalt wants for his third grader. He said he couldn’t imagine another year of half-day schedules and distance learning.

“The mental health and the social and cognitive growth of our children must become priority,” he said.

Folsom Cordova Unified announced it’s moving forward with its plan to return to a traditional schedule in the fall. Elk Grove Unified Board President Beth Albiani expressed that hope in a recent school board meeting. But most school districts, including Sacramento City Unified, will have to work on labor negotiations and new schedules.

Latest school guidelines

Opening schools and transitioning to full schedules may become easier in the coming weeks and months as guidance and safety measures continue to be modified.

Jeffrey Galinovsky, a Folsom Cordova Unified parent, said he felt his district did more than enough to prepare schools for students’ return, including vaccinating teachers. Galinovsky, who has a ninth grade daughter, is concerned over the learning loss and mental health issues exacerbated by the pandemic.

“We cannot go through this again,” he said. “We need our kids back full time for so many reasons that if that is not allowed, the districts need to stand up for the kids and do it anyway.”

The Centers for Disease Control recently updated its guidance allowing for a three-foot distance between desks in classrooms, which would allow for more students in each classroom. And there are incentives, like state and federal funding, to move forward with in-person learning too. The Biden administration’s COVID-19 recovery bill provides more than $122 billion to states and school districts, and one-fifth of those funds must be spent on programs that help address learning loss, including summer school and extended-day programs. The state also announced an additional 3 million free rapid COVID-19 Antigen tests to help high-needs schools.

State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond said a big part of successfully keeping campuses open is the rapid COVID-19 testing, such as the BinaxNOW tests the state is making available to school districts.

“Our system wasn’t built to deliver education this way,” Thurmond said of distance learning. “We are turning our attention to how schools begin to plan and prepare to receive students and offset learning gaps.”

Districts are primarily focused on how to mitigate learning loss in what’s left of the 2020-2021 school year. And the state will provide more funding for robust summer programs that don’t just serve students at risk of being held back — as long as the majority of those summer programs are in-person. Those plans are still being ironed out, so it’s no surprise there hasn’t been much discussion about the fall.

“I think everyone is hopeful,” Thurmond said during a press conference. “Most districts in the state have announced plans, and even as we speak many different counties are moving into orange tier, which allows for more broader activities. It would seem we are moving into the direction that one could imagine in the fall, that the sizeable number of students can be served in person.”

Thurmond said the vaccine rollout and declining infection rates indicate that schools will likely have in-person instruction in the fall.

“Many of the health experts say we are not out of the woods yet, and we need to be careful and thoughtful,” he said. “We don’t want to put ourselves in a position to be forced to shutdown. That means wear a mask and we need to track the new variants and see what the impact is. These variants could mean that COVID is with us for a long a time.”

A look at schools in the fall

Once counties are in the red tier, school district officials are not required to submit reopening plans like they were while in the purple tier, according to county health official Nick Mori.

But Lincoln Snyder, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Sacramento, is being proactive by submitting his reopening plan to the county to document some of the changes campuses are making. Snyder proposed to the county that teachers, who have received their COVID-19 vaccines, would be able to interact with one another on campus and in break rooms.

Most of the safety measures will still be in place: masks, spaced desks, rapid testing, a prohibition on large gatherings like school rallies, and students will remain in stable groups with limited interaction.

The CDC’s recommendation for three-foot spacing between desks allows public and private schools to welcome more students into each classroom. Snyder estimates that two downtown Sacramento schools in the diocese will be able to welcome about 20 additional students in the fall.

While the CDC relaxed physical distancing guidelines, masks will be enforced at schools. Several parents told The Bee they hope students would not be required to wear masks in the fall, but health officials say that’s an unlikely goal.

“Our expectation is that as long as we have the virus circulating in the community, masks will be a requirement,” said Sacramento County public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye. “Our expectation is that masks will be required in the fall.”

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said it’s likely people would be wearing masks into 2022. When Texas Gov. Greg Abbot lifted his state’s mask mandate, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the move “absolutely reckless” in a March 2 tweet.

Snyder’s reopening plan for the fall requires masks for Catholic school students, although he hopes children second grade and below will be able to adhere to former county guidelines that did not require masks for younger students.

Is virtual learning here to stay?

Schools will offer distance learning in the fall, but SB 98, which allowed for schools to pivot to distance learning, sunsets on June 30. New legislation will be needed to ensure schools will provide distance learning in the fall.

Some school districts, like Folsom Cordova Unified, have started the process to register their virtual academies with the state department of education so the online programs can serve as stand-alone schools.

“While in the early planning stages, families can expect an option for full virtual learning, for grades K-12 next school year,” read a district letter to parents.

For parents such as Erin Gottis, distance learning has proven to be beneficial. Gottis’ 10-year-old son Mason has Type 1 diabetes and severe asthma. The common cold sends him to the emergency room at least once a year, so Gottis wants to wait until children receive the vaccine before returning to campus.

“In general kids have a hard time staying away from each other and I feel like we will constantly be worried about exposure,” she said. “I’d rather him miss school, fall behind, and miss his friend than to possibly die. In no space in my mind is going to school safe for Mason.”

Gottis said that concern felt more real when Mason visited the emergency room in March 2020 and days later a substitute teacher at his school died from complications of COVID-19.

Gottis said she’s worried about what school districts will offer in the fall.

“I couldn’t imagine my kids not being a part of the school they love,” she said. “I hope they don’t leave behind the families with medically complex children. Otherwise we will need to come up with a new game plan. I mean just because adults are vaccinated doesn’t mean they can’t continue to spread it. What about kids who are fragile and could possibly face a harder time than a typical child?”

About 47% of Sacramento City Unified students are currently choosing to stay online as their classmates return to campus. About 30% of Elk Grove students are returning to campus. It’s unclear how many parents and students are choosing to continue distance learning because they have safety concerns, because the school year is nearly over or because distance learning works better for their families.

While it’s likely that more families will show interest in returning to campus in the fall, there are many families who are choosing to stay online.

John Goldberg also plans to keep his 10-year-old son in Sacramento City Unified’s distance learning program. To ensure that their son wouldn’t have to return to campus before it was safe to do so, Goldberg and his late wife unenrolled him from the district in August to have him attend Natomas Charter School. After Goldberg’s wife passed away from cancer in in November, their son returned to Crocker Riverside Elementary and remained online with his peers. Goldberg said he will send his son back to Crocker Riverside once his son and his peers are vaccinated.

His daughter will turn 16 in the summer and will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, so Goldberg said he is open to the idea of her returning to McClatchy High School in the fall, depending on the teen vaccination rate in the region.

“I will do anything to avoid my kids having to go back into a physical classroom until after they and all, or almost all, of their classmates are vaccinated,” Goldberg said. “I filed the affidavit with the state saying that I am running a home school for my kids. I will do that if I can’t find a good online school for them. Education is very important to me but their lives are even more important than that.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.