A lot of confusion continues to swirl about TUSD's secondary reopening plan. Today, we will focus on some of the most commonly asked questions:

The California Department of Public Health provides the main guidance on reopening our schools. On January 14 CDPH released a new document, COVID-19 and Reopening In-Person Instruction Framework & Public Health Guidance for K-12 Schools in California, 2020-2021 School Year, and last week already made updates that were, unfortunately, not widely publicized. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also provides "considerations," most recently in the Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation, but as the State's CDPH-CA K-12 Schools Guidance Crosswalk made clear, the CDC does not supersede the State. Finally, our local public health officer/department, Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, can also issue orders and directives that can actually be stricter than State guidance. For example, in order to resume choir and band practice, we were required to have a case rate lower than 25/100,000, although this is not mentioned in the State guidance.

When can secondary schools reopen? There has been a lot of confusion about when secondary schools are allowed to reopen. Counties must officially be in the Red Tier in order for schools to reopen; that means two weeks of Red Tier numbers in both case and positivity rate prior in order to a change from Purple to Red. The previous State guidance required 5 days in the Red Tier before reopening, but this can now occur as soon as the Wednesday following the State's Tuesday tier announcements. Our planned start date remains the Monday start after the State's announcement. Another new change was the addition of a three-week eligibility window for reopening schools.

Why do we have to close a classroom for a positive case while in other counties schools are allowed to do seating chart contact tracing? Prior to the State reopening guidance issued on January 14, there was no mention of an option to not close a classroom for a positive case as was our practice throughout the winter. The new State guidance allows for both classroom closures for a positive case or the following:

There continues to be a concern about the spread of COVID-19 in indoor spaces with poor ventilation and sub-optimal masking. Unfortunately, seating chart contact tracing may not always capture all those who were potentially exposed to COVID-19 in a classroom with poor ventilation as illustrated by a recent New York Times article. At this time, per SCHSA, any exposure to a positive case, in either an elementary or secondary classroom, will require both students and staff to quarantine for 10 days. (Note: There are some exceptions for someone who has had COVID-19 in the previous 90 days or is within 90 days following receipt of the 2nd dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Why didn't TUSD open while Stanislaus County was in the Red Tier last fall? There are a number of factors that led to the decision not to reopen secondary schools last fall during the short window we were in the Red Tier and instead focus on small learning cohorts--a lack of a reopening plan was not one of them. It is important to remember that at that time we knew a winter surge was coming and that the classroom closure guidance for positive cases was already being felt at the elementary level. With increased mixing at the secondary level, one major factor in the decision not to reopen was the potential for disruption at the end of the semester to student's learning due to the increased likelihood of multiple classroom closures for a single positive case. Several surrounding high schools that reopened last fall wound up returning to distance learning in December. At last week's Stanislaus County Board of Supervisor's meeting, the below graph was shared which illustrates the winter surge in cases. As shared in our new COVID-19 Safety Training, community prevalence of COVID-19 may not necessarily lead to in-school transmission, but it does affect school-based cases. We are hopeful that the average daily case rate for COVID-19 in Stanislaus County will continue to decline throughout the spring increasing the likelihood that our classrooms and schools will be able to remain open.

The CARE Program is proud to start these two group supports, beginning this week! Groups are once weekly for 8-10 weeks, held via Zoom.

Pitman Girls Golf participated in the CCAL Tournament hosted by Turlock at TGCC. The Lady Pride finished 4^th on the day behind Enochs, Turlock, and Gregori as all six teams participated. The Pride were led by Monet Sayadian with a 93 and Isabelle Rodriguez with a 94. The Pride will continue with league play as they travel to Dryden Park on Wednesday to take on Modesto and Gregori.

Boys Tennis continues to grow as they played two matches on the week. On Tuesday the Pride traveled across town to take on the Bulldogs. Turlock took a 7-2 victory over the Pride as freshman #6 Nanak Barring played hard and lost a 3 set tie breaker in his match to Josh Backus. Marcos Mendoza also lost a 3 set tie breaker 8-10 to Turlock’s Adrian Rosero at #1’s. All matches on the day were very competitive as the Pride and Bulldogs split sets on four other matches. On Thursday the Pride traveled to Enochs to take on the Eagles. The Pride came away with an 8-1 victory to improve to 1-2 on the young seasons. Pitman won all six singles on the day led by Marcos Mendoza, Trey Bucheli, Craig Martin and Alex Medina.

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