Sacramento County must stop Capital Christian School’s coronavirus ‘day care’ stunt
Can schools and businesses in Sacramento County avoid coronavirus shutdowns by simply calling themselves “day care” centers?
Capital Christian High School is about to find out. Last week, the high school reopened using a novel ruse: It declared itself a “day care” center.
This is a cynical and transparent attempt to bypass county health laws. It endangers the health of students, teachers and parents
“Capital Christian has used a day care provision to make it work this far, which has impressed students and parents, but also caught the attention of the Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson,” wrote Sacramento Bee reporters Joe Davidson and Sawsan Morrar.
An upset Beilenson told The Bee that he planned to call Capital Christian, “adding that if the school is violating the state and county COVID-19 rules, ‘We would shut them down.’”
On Monday, however, Capital Christian Head of Schools Tim Wong was still waiting for Beilenson’s call and still planning to keep the high school open under the flimsy guise of “day care.”
Wong claims the school has taken every possible safety measure. He points out, understandably, that many parents need their children back in school so that they can return to their jobs. And he argued that the Rosemont school’s relatively small population of students — 300 in a school designed for 700 — make a safe reopening possible.
However, many other schools are in similar situations, but we don’t see them bizarrely pretending to be day care centers — yet.
It’s simply irresponsible to reopen schools without the proper coronavirus testing and contact tracing capabilities needed to do so safely. It’s especially dangerous for Capital Christian to pull this stunt while Sacramento County remains on California’s “watch list” of counties with surging COVID-19 numbers. Over 200 Sacramento County residents have died.
Capital Christian should reverse course before it’s too late. We already know the virus will spread in schools. Across the nation and the world, schools have been forced to shut down after the virus began to spread rapidly among students.
In defending his decision to reopen the school, Wong said “It’s basically a study place for students. We like to think of ourselves as academic anthropologists.”
But the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 170,000 Americans and 11,274 Californians, is a matter for doctors and epidemiologists, not so-called “anthropologists.”
Beilenson told The Bee that the high school’s attempt to reopen as a day care is a clear violation of county rules, which only allow day care for very young children, not high schoolers. Beilenson vowed to shut down the school if he determines that it has broken the rules.
It’s time for Dr. Beilenson to stop fretting and act. Every minute of delay increases the likelihood of viral spread at Capital Christian, which is in clear violation of county rules. Every minute Capital Christian remains open under these false pretenses sets a bad example that others will surely seek to follow. What’s next? Bars, gyms and other schools reopening as day care centers?
Beilenson must immediately close the doors of Capital Christian and provide a lesson for administrators, teachers and students alike: Dishonesty provides no shortcuts during a deadly pandemic.