Can California keep schools open during omicron? Here’s what officials say could cause problems

When California’s 6 million K-12 school students left for winter break in December, the state’s COVID-19 positivity rate was hovering around 5%.

Now, after weeks of travel, holiday gatherings and the continued spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, California’s K-12 students, teachers and staff return to classrooms this month facing a positivity rate of 20.4% – nearly quadruple the rate it was prior to Christmas break.

It’s worse than the surge caused by the delta variant over the summer and the surge in March 2020 that caused many schools to send students home.

This time, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state leaders have vowed to keep schools open.

“Our strong feeling is we’ve got to do everything we can to keep kids in school in-person,” said Dave Gordon, superintendent for the Sacramento County Office of Education. “Because the kids are suffering from all of this turmoil and lack of association with their peers and it’s not normal and it’s not healthy.”

Concerns about testing capacity, vaccinations, and school staff shortages, however, have the potential to strain school districts as they enter year three of the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the U.S., school districts in areas with high positivity rates have started the 2022 spring semester online. New Jersey, which has the nation’s highest positivity rate at 86.75%, has already seen several of its largest districts opt for a return to remote learning.

This was not the situation California lawmakers envisioned when they outlined protocols for a return to in-person instruction last year, said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, a lobbying firm that represents hundreds of districts around the state.

The state may need to adjust its thinking if the omicron surge poses a serious threat to schools, he said.

“Lawmakers and the Governor wrote legislation anticipating a path beyond COVID, not one that clearly has us stuck in the middle of a pandemic,” Gordon said. “So there may be issues that need to be addressed in order to sustain student instruction and safety.”

COVID testing in schools

Days before Christmas, Newsom announced the state would provide every K-12 public school student with an at-home test kit to use before returning to classrooms in January.

But some parents are still waiting on tests.

On Monday, the California Department of Public Health confirmed that the state had delivered 3 million tests to counties for distribution, and another million were en route. Those were in addition to 2 million at-home tests sent to 3,000 school districts earlier in December.

Ali Bay, a spokesperson for the department, said millions of tests have already been delivered to California families, but many others were delayed by recent storms.

The Sacramento County Office of Education, which oversees all school districts in the county, didn’t receive its full shipment of tests until Monday, and Superintendent Dave Gordon said the office didn’t have a timeline of when the test kits would make it to families.

Sacramento County won’t require testing to return to classrooms, Gordon said. It’s a tool for parents to gauge safety as their students head back to school.

Other districts, however, will require proof of a negative test to return.

Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest in the state with 600,000 students and 1,000 schools, will require all students and employees to have proof of a negative COVID-19 test in order to come onto campus when classes resume Jan. 11. The district is providing tests to students this week.

Los Angeles schools will also continue weekly testing for all students and employees throughout the month of January. The district requires masks at all times both indoors and outside, and a health screening is required for all campus visitors, according to district guidance.

Superintendent Gordon said keeping teachers and staff healthy is another priority heading into the new year.

After three semesters of pandemic learning, educators are already struggling with burnout and low staffing numbers that could worsen in the event of breakthrough infections.

Across the country, airlines, restaurants, health care providers, and even Broadway theaters have had to cut back operations because of employees falling sick. Schools worry about the same thing happening to teachers.

“That’s the real potential pain point,” Gordon said. ”We’ve already been short of staff in the form of substitute teachers and support people. So we just have to do whatever we can do. If need be, encourage people to come back, maybe retired staff.”

Quarantine, isolation rules

In late December, the Centers for Disease Control adopted new guidelines for isolation and quarantine, shortening the traditional 10 day period to five days.

Shortened quarantine and isolation periods are significant for school children, who many argue have already missed out on too much classroom time over the course of the pandemic.

California officials quickly adopted the new CDC guidelines for the general public, but are currently reviewing whether they are applicable in K-12 school settings. In the meantime, CDPH said districts should continue to follow earlier guidelines laid out in November.

Unvaccinated students who come in close contact with someone with COVID-19 — generally described as an encounter without masks — must quarantine for 10 days under state guidance. Students can return after a week, however, if they test negative five days after a close contact.

Isolation occurs only when a student tests positive for COVID-19. Under current guidance, such students would follow the state’s general rules for isolation. Per the newest rules, that means a student with COVID-19 would stay home for at least five days, regardless of vaccination status, previous infection or lack of symptoms.

California’s state budget requires all districts to return to full-time, in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year in order to receive funding. Districts can offer at-home learning through independent study programs for those students who may be cautious about returning, but doing so en-masse could be difficult.

Lawmakers last year passed new requirements for independent study programs to remedy common issues brought up in remote learning. If students participate in an at-home independent study program, schools must provide opportunities for live interaction, access to the necessary technology, specific strategies to engage students who aren’t meaningfully participating, and a system for tracking student progress.

If schools were to return to remote learning, they’d be held to higher standards than they were before.

“It won’t be easy, but it is not impossible,” Kevin Gordon of Capitol Advisors said. “Schools may raise issues that need to be addressed for the very quick turnaround in implementing virtual options that the law may have not anticipated.”

California school vaccines

California made national headlines in the fall when Newsom announced the state would add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of inoculations required to attend K-12 public schools. The state will require the vaccine for students at the start of the semester following full FDA approval for their age group.

Newsom and health officials have continued to push vaccinations as one of the best tools to fight infection, but the student mandate isn’t likely to take effect until the fall 2022 term.

Some districts tried to require vaccines for students sooner, but those efforts have faltered.

Los Angeles Unified had originally planned to require vaccines at the start of the semester, Jan. 10, but in December voted to push the date back to fall 2022. West Contra Costa Unified School District also pushed its deadline from Jan. 3 to Feb. 18.

Those who didn’t show proof of vaccination would have been required to do remote learning via independent study, and districts said they weren’t prepared to add thousands of students to those programs.

Among 12 to 17 year olds, nearly 75% are fully vaccinated, per state data. Among 5 to 11 year old students in California, only 17.2% are fully vaccinated.

Teachers and school staff are still required to show proof of full vaccination or be tested at least once a week. The state has encouraged all Californians to get their booster shots, and made it a requirement for healthcare workers.

This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM.