If Santa Barbara County continues to remain in the red tier in the state’s reopening plan, K-12 schools would be allowed to reopen starting Oct. 13. But it doesn’t mean that every school will choose to reopen.
“The decision of when and how to reopen schools remains with our locally elected school board leaders,” said 2nd District Supervisor and Board Chair Gregg Hart at an Oct. 2 press conference. “Each situation is different and presents unique logistical challenges.”
Susan Salcido, the county’s superintendent of schools, said that as of that morning, 21 schools had already been approved to reopen under the county’s public health elementary waiver process.
“Two of those schools are public schools, Cold Spring and Montecito. And there are an additional nine waivers under consideration,” Salcido said during the conference.
Salcido added that schools presently had the option to bring back small cohorts no larger than 14 students, as well as sports, with restrictions.
Santa Maria-Bonita School District Superintendent Luke Onitveros spoke at the district’s Sept. 23 board meeting about why North County districts like his are hesitant to jump too quickly into reopening.
For one, he said, the size of the district would make it difficult to meet the testing requirements for reopening. Furthermore, all schools that plan to reopen on Oct. 13 still must abide by distancing restrictions, which for larger schools could present an issue.
“We’re seeing schools in South County—Cold Spring [Elementary School], which has 85 kids—they have applied for a waiver and had it approved, and they will be moving forward,” Ontiveros said. “Montecito [Union School District], which has 270 kids, has the opportunity for that physical space.”
But, Ontiveros continued, “the 14 largest elementary schools in the county exist in Santa Maria-Bonita, and so we’ve got to think more strategically around how we make this work.”
The district is also taking into consideration the COVID-19 metrics specific to Santa Maria. While the county as a whole is in the red tier, Onitveros said that he worked with a county epidemiologist to calculate rates in Santa Maria, and numbers are still elevated when compared to the county.
On Sept. 12, for example, the county’s case rate sat at 6.7 percent, but according to Ontiveros, Santa Maria’s was at a little more than 9 percent. On Sept. 16, he said, the county was at 5.6 percent, and Santa Maria at 7.6 percent.
“We have a higher transmission rate,” Ontiveros said.
He added that between the Santa-Maria Bonita School District, Guadalupe Union School District, Orcutt Union School District, Blochman Union School District, and Santa Maria Joint Union School District, “we share families, we share kids.”
“We’re trying to keep contact with each other so that we’re responding in similar fashions,” Ontiveros said. “Orcutt and the [Santa Maria Joint Union] High School District, … they’re really pushing for bringing back athletic training, which has a different set of controls than those classroom environments.”
Santa Maria Joint Union High School District brought back some sports practices starting Sept. 21.
Ultimately, Ontiveros said that going back to in-person learning is realistically not going to happen for a while.
“The questions come in about when we’re going to get kids back in school, like the old days,” he said. “It’s a long ways off … and that’s what’s happening in the other districts in the area as well, because we don’t want to do anything that could have a negative effect.”
Similarly, Santa Maria Joint Union School District Public Information Officer Kenny Klein told the Sun via email that his district is “hoping for a January reopening (second semester), but we are constantly re-evaluating that decision as COVID-19 conditions continue to change.”
But Ontiveros added that, for Santa Maria-Bonita, bringing back small cohorts under the state’s allowances is on the horizon, particularly for students with special needs.
“Starting with those cohorts would give us an opportunity to build some bandwidth around [reopening] protocols and procedures, and would be addressing our students at highest needs,” he said.
