Soquel Kindergarten to Open March 15, By Jondi Gumz

COMMUNITY NEWS Soquel Kindergarten to Open March 15

By Jondi Gumz

Ayear after the contagious COVID-19 closed public school campuses and forced a switch to distance learning, the 10 school superintendents in Santa Cruz County announced plans Thursday night to reopen elementary schools for hybrid in-person instruction in the wake of active cases falling below 450 and the anticipated move from the Purple Tier to the less restrictive Red Tier in a week or two.

Scotts Valley will be the first to return kindergarten and transitional kindergarten March 3, Mountain School on March 8, Soquel Union and San Lorenzo Valley on March 15 and Live Oak March 22. Pajaro Valley plans to reopen April 5.

Additional grades return a week or two later, with high school starting after the county is in the Red Tier. Summer school is being planned, and conversations about high school graduation ceremonies are beginning, although no one knows what the COVID case situation will be like in June.

Each day, about half the elementary students will be on campus, to meet the six-foot distance requirement. Schedules will include morning and afternoon cohorts and alternate days, and families can opt for online lessons if they wish.

It’s not possible to bring all students on campus at the same time because of the state’s six-foot physical distance requirement, Dr. Faris Sabbah, county superintendent of schools, explained. Private schools have done it because their class sizes are smaller so they’re able to provide the space.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 51,000 Californians and 183 Santa Cruz County residents, with 55 percent of those local deaths at nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Locally, 74 percent of those who died were age 80 or older and 77 percent had other health conditions.

Safety

To keep students and staff safe at school, there will be surveillance testing, improved air quality with approved purifiers, students assigned to fixed groups, along with face coverings, handwashing, disinfecting and temperature checks to keep anyone who is sick at home.

Sabbah credited Dignity Health Medical Foundation and Dominican Hospital with vaccinating 4,500 teachers and support staff, about 70 percent of staff overall.

Dr. Nanette Mickiewicz, Dominican Hospital president/CEO, said vaccine supplies from the state made it possible to vaccinate Dominican’s 1,700 health care workers, first responders and others in the first priority tier, with more supplies coming from Common Spirit, the hospital’s parent company, and the county.

“COVID Update” page 18

Photo Credit: Pajaro Valley Arts New mural “Wear Together” by Watsonville artist Erik Davison is one of the Movable Murals, “An Act of Love: Mask Wearing During the Pandemic,” a project of Pajaro Valley Arts and the city of Watsonville and funded by the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust.

Experts in matters of the heart.

At Dignity Health – Dominican Hospital, our cardiology specialists have your best interest at heart. From education, prevention and diagnostic procedures to advanced surgical treatment and rehabilitation, we consider your heart from every angle. So if yours is due for a checkup, don’t delay the important care you need. We’re here and ready to safely put our heart into caring for yours. Learn more and find a cardiologist near you at DignityHealth.org/DominicanHearts.