SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Thousands of San Diego kids and their families are getting ready to take on a new challenge. Monday, August 31, is the first day of online classes for the San Diego Unified School District.
All classes for every grade level will be online and continue into Tuesday even after the state and San Diego County gave the green light for schools to reopen classrooms starting Sept. 1. In fact, San Diego Unified has been taking a measured approach for some time.
In the beginning of August, before San Diego County was off the state’s watch list, the district unveiled a plan for reopening its classrooms that advertised as having stricter standards than most.
News 8 spoke with Superintendent Cindy Marten Monday to discuss the new instruction for SDUSD’s first day of online school.
“Set up a learning environment and schedule that works for you and your family, we’re going to personalize that and make sure it’s working for you. Six hours on a computer is no good for anybody, we all know that – but we also know our students need to learn,” Superintendent Marten said.
You can watch the full interview below:
Parents can visit the districts new website to view dozens of online learning opportunities and increased levels of support for the year ahead.
School officials said when they do reopen it will be in phases. Masks will be required, proper ventilation in buildings will be a must and social distancing will be strictly enforced.
The district announced last Thursday that some elementary school students would be offered voluntary in-person learning sessions. Those students have been identified as having experienced a learning loss due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Wooten, there is a 21-day mandatory wait time before any county can move between tiers, and a county must meet the metrics for the next tier for two straight weeks. Also, a county may only move one tier at a time.
The timeline for schools being able to open for in-person instruction on Sept. 1 is not affected by this new system of tiers, Wooten said. The state will monitor the data weekly, with results announced Tuesdays.
If San Diego County maintains a case rate of fewer than 100 cases per 100,000 people, schools will be allowed to reopen on Tuesday. The rate as of Sunday was 78.6 per 100,000.
County health officials reported 253 new COVID-19 cases and three new deaths on Sunday, raising the region's totals to 38,300 cases and 682 deaths.
Three men in their 80s died. All three had underlying medical conditions.
Of the 5,360 tests reported Saturday, 5% returned positive.
The 14-day rolling average of positive tests is 3.7%, well below the state's 8% guideline. The seven-day average number of tests performed in the county is 6,775.
Of the total positive cases, 3,099 -- or 8.1% -- have required hospitalization since the pandemic began, and 750 -- or 2% -- were admitted to an intensive care unit.
County health officials reported two new community outbreaks as of Saturday, bringing the number of outbreaks in the past week to 19. One outbreak was in a health care setting and one in a business setting.
The number of community outbreaks remains well above the county's goal of fewer than seven in a seven-day span. A community setting outbreak is defined as three or more COVID-19 cases in a setting and in people of different households in the past 14 days.