September 14, 2020
To the MBUSD Community,
As we enter our third full week of this semester, I hope that your children’s experiences have been positive. While there are still many challenges with not having our students at school, I have heard from many parents that remote instruction is far more consistent with higher expectations for learning than last spring. I am grateful to our teachers for rising to the occasion, adapting to a whole new teaching environment, and jumping into this year ready to meet the needs of their students.
In this newsletter I will update you on revised county and state guidelines, describe programs we are initiating or hope to begin soon, and look at next steps in our 5-Phase plan for returning to school.
|
|
While all of us wish that we could be back to in-person schooling, I know that our teachers will emerge from this pandemic with expertise that could change the face of education when we return. I believe we will be more nimble and more capable of responding to the wide range of student needs. I believe that many parent meetings, including some of our Board meetings, will be held via Zoom so that more people can access them live or through high quality recordings. There are many industries where this pandemic will have long-range implications for what work looks like and where it happens, and schools are no different.
The COVID-19 infection data is getting better both nationally and locally, but we are not out of this yet. Long Beach Unified just announced that they will not be coming back before January 28, 2021. We are still hopeful for an earlier return than that.
As you may remember, the MBUSD Board of Trustees adopted a 5-Phase plan for returning to school:
- Phase 1: Begin all TK-12 instruction in distance learning.
- Phase 2: Elementary hybrid model/High Need TK-5 Hybrid
- Phase 3: High Need Hybrid for grades 6-12
- Phase 4: Secondary Hybrid
- Phase 5: Return to Full (Non-Hybrid) Learning
|
|
CHILDCARE PROGRAM
Although we are still in Phase 1, we are beginning to bring back some of our students to campuses this Wednesday. I am looking forward to welcoming almost 200 children as they return to three school sites for childcare: the Preschool, Meadows Elementary, and Pacific Elementary. We are also able to bring back many of our Preschool and EDP teachers and assistants to meet the needs of this program. As we prepare to welcome these students and employees, we have checked all the required boxes in a 95-point checklist from the Department of Public Health and we have obtained all the safety and PPE equipment we need to operate the program. Safety procedures for our students, staff, and families are in place, and when we start on Wednesday, we will be able to quickly assess what practices work effectively and what practices need improvement. All of this will be extremely helpful as we move along our 5-Phase plan towards a full reopening.
|
|
STUDENT ATHLETICS
We also hope to bring back some of our student athletes at Mira Costa soon for athletic training. On August 6, the state announced that high schools could begin athletic training without contact, without scrimmaging and without actual playing of games, but it could include conditioning and skill building. Many of our coaches have elected to start these non-mandatory programs. I look forward to announcing the start dates of those programs soon. Again, we will learn from this process as we move towards Phases 2-5.
|
|
HIGH NEED HYBRID
On September 4, the state announced that they will be allowing small cohorts of students with IEPs and students who are English Learners back onto campuses for assessments and critical learning. This is the High Need Hybrid that is included in Phases 2 and 3 of MBUSD’s re-entry plan. We have been analyzing our programs and our students' IEPs and determining the best ways to meet the most urgent needs. This involves careful examination of the services that are the most difficult to offer in a distance format, as well as a case-by-case review of students who are having the most difficulty accessing services in a virtual model. In addition, we are negotiating with our teachers union and collectively discussing how to open this program on our campuses. We will provide updates as they are available, and we hope to be able to start this program soon.
|
|
ELEMENTARY WAIVER APPLICATION
There have been a lot of questions about when MBUSD will be applying for a waiver to begin our in-person elementary school programs. At this point, the LA County Department of Public Health has no intention of opening the waiver application process until they can examine the high needs hybrid implementation in schools across the county. The County has also stated that this analysis will not be completed until late October or, more probably, early November. Although this news was disappointing, for MBUSD, the successful implementation of childcare, athletics training, and the new high needs hybrid will help us to complete our preparations for re-opening our elementary schools, and then secondary schools, when those options become available.
|
|
FREE MEALS FOR ALL MBUSD STUDENTS
The District was recently approved by the USDA and CDE to provide FREE meals to all MBUSD students through December 31, 2020. This is not the same as the Free and Reduced Price meal program that we run other times of the year. Rather, this is set up to assist parents during this troublesome time. All school districts nationwide are participating, and by ordering meals you are actually helping MBUSD receive funding. Details can be found here, menus are posted here, and order forms can be found here. If you have additional questions, please review the FAQs here. I am appreciative of our Food & Nutrition Director, Lena Agee, for her hard work in getting our district approved for this program.
|
|
CONSTRUCTION UPDATES
Our construction progress has continued throughout the pandemic. The Mira Costa High School athletics facility is close to completion in mid-October. I cannot wait to open this new building to the public and to see our athletes using the space. If you drive by Mira Costa on Peck Avenue, you can get a nice view of the construction. It’s a beautiful addition to the campus and will serve our community for decades to come.
Construction workers are also putting the finishing touches on modernization work at Meadows, Robinson, and Grand View. Classrooms on those campuses will now have new flooring, new sliding doors, improved infrastructure, air conditioning and more. The classrooms are beautiful and we Look forward to seeing our students and staff in them.
|
|
VIRTUAL ASSEMBLIES
Just because we are in distance learning, it doesn’t mean that we can’t have powerful assemblies and virtual school gatherings. To honor the victims and heroes of 9/11, Grand View and Robinson Elementary Schools held their first Zoom assemblies last Friday. It was wonderful to see the students’ faces as they sang praises to the essential workers and first responders in our community.
|
|
Mike Matthews, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Manhattan Beach Unified School District
325 S. Peck Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
(310)318-7345, x5900
|
|
[310-318-7345, x5902] [mmathews@mbusd.org] [www.mbusd.org] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
