Dear AUHSD Parents & Guardians,
I hope all are finding time this summer break to enjoy with family. This past week has brought several updates related to our school opening in August. To confirm our plans announced in April, we will open fully, in-person, with our traditional school day schedule, five days a week, beginning on August 10 for the 2021-2022 school year. We look forward to seeing all our students.
What remained uncertain into the summer were the updated California Department of Public Health (CDPH) safety requirements and recommendations for schools. On Friday, July 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued this advisory guidance for K-12 schools recommending various layered mitigation strategies to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Subsequently, CDPH responded with the California requirements and recommendations for K-12 schools when they issued the CDPH COVID-19 Public Health Guidance for K-12 Schools on Monday. CDC and CDPH shared the priority of full-day, in-person instruction for students and recommended strategies for schools to achieve this goal.
CDPH is not requiring masking outdoors, whether students/staff are vaccinated or unvaccinated, but all must mask when indoors in the school setting with students. CDPH prioritized eliminating the indoor distancing requirement to ensure all students can return to full-day, in-person learning and maintained the masking requirement as a COVID-19 prevention strategy. As a District, we will continue to follow the requirements set forth by the California Department of Public Health. We have been told that CDPH will reevaluate the guidance in October.
We are currently awaiting updated guidance/requirements from CDPH regarding other school activities, including sports, music and field trips. We expect the sports schedule to remain with fall sports beginning on August 9. We await clarification from CDPH regarding any required health and safety protocols for activities and whether there will be any restrictions with spectators, particularly for indoor sports and performances.
Vaccination is currently the leading public health prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Although vaccination rates in California are among the highest in the country, and the rates in our communities are very high, vaccination administration in our County has stalled, and the presence of the virus and its variants has increased in our County in recent weeks. We hope that all our high school students and their eligible family members will obtain a vaccination unless a medical provider advises otherwise. While the law has not changed to require the vaccination for attendance at public school, we know the higher the vaccination rate on our campus, the safer all students and staff will be. If your student remains unvaccinated, we encourage you to please visit this Contra Costa Health Services website or contact your medical provider to schedule a vaccine appointment.
We will provide more information and details on school safety protocols as they becomes available. In the meantime, you can expect correspondence from your school regarding the online registration (data confirmation, residency verification, webstore), which opens on July 26, and the walkthrough registration, which happens on August 9.
Thank you for your ongoing support as we continue to navigate our way to “normalcy,”
Enjoy the remaining weeks of the summer break.
Sincerely,
John Nickerson
Superintendent
