Mike Matthews'
Monday Morning Message

October 19, 2020
Good morning,

First - a civic reminder. The election is just days away! My wife and I voted this weekend and I will be dropping off the ballots in one of the official ballot boxes later today. Don’t forget to vote!

On Friday, we updated ourFacts vs. Rumorswebpage in response to questions we have received or heard about. The page has had over 1,030 visits since we updated it October 9.

Here are some updates for this week.

  • High Needs Hybrid: It was fantastic to see some of our DHH students back on campus last week. We had students at several schools returning, and we began assessing students on campuses. In a poll taken last week through the Los Angeles County Office of Education, only about 30% of school districts in LA County had opened schools with high need hybrids. Our program will be steadily expanding from this point forward. Dr. Irene Gonzalez-Castillo sent out this email to parents and guardians of students with IEPs.

  • Preparing our Elementary Classrooms for Hybrid In-Person Learning: When LA County moves from the Purple Tier to the Red Tier (staying below 7.0 cases per 100,000 for at least four weeks), we anticipate that the County will open up elementary schools for hybrid in-person learning. We are preparing for that day by:
  • implementing the health and safety precautions that we described in our Health and Safety Protocols document,
  • placing signage in our hallways and entrances
  • providing directional markers so that we have one-way traffic throughout the school
  • painting socially distanced markings to avoid congregation at entry and egress points
  • turning off water fountains
  • ensuring that all classrooms are equipped with hand sanitizer
  • stocking all sinks with soap and paper towels
  • providing disinfecting supplies
  • maximizing classroom ventilation, including upgrading HVAC filters.
Next week, our Maintenance and Operations (M&O) departments will remove furniture from our elementary classrooms, leaving chairs and desks for a maximum of 12 to 16 students in each classroom, depending on grade level. They will also remove classroom rugs and all furniture that is porous, such as sofas and bean bag chairs.
Room picture
Preparing our Classrooms
This classroom at Pennekamp illustrates the changes students will see when they return to campus.

  • TK-2 Waiver: Our application for the TK-2 waiver is almost complete. We continue to meet with our employees, including our labor unions, focusing on in-person learning in our TK-5 grades. As we continue to assemble all of the requirements for the TK-2 waiver, I have assurances that the City of Manhattan Beach will be providing letters of support this week, I already have letters of support from our PTAs, and I am hopeful that we can meet all requirements by this Friday. Meeting the requirements of the County for this waiver is challenging - only four schools in the entire county had met all requirements as of last week. 

  • Parent Surveys: I am not ready to ask parents to make a commitment and choose between hybrid learning and distance learning, but I do want to get the pulse of our community. In this very brief survey, I am asking parents to let me know, for each of their children, if they had to commit now, whether they would choose distance learning for the remainder of of the 2020-21 school year, or hybrid learning, where they will be in school part of the time and distance learning part of the time. I will share the results with the board on Wednesday and of course share them with our community.

Many of you saw in your school's e-newsletter over the weekend that on October 7, the MBUSD Board of Trustees approved the formation of an official committee focusing on Equity, Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusion within our district. We are soliciting individuals who are truly committed to changing the climate of care in our district. If you are interested in serving on this committee, click here.

Ending on a different note, it’s been a great week for L.A. sports fans. One week ago, the Lakers won their 17th NBA championship, and last night, in a fantastic Game 7, the Dodgers won the National League pennant and are off to the World Series. That’s a great week. We have many in our community associated with these teams and many more fans. Congrats to all of us! (And not to be nerdy, but if you look at all of the logistics it took to make those sporting events happen, you know that dealing with COVID is beyond complicated.)

Have a great week, everyone.
Mike Matthews
MBUSD Superintendent
Manhattan Beach Unified School District

325 S. Peck Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
310.318.7345