SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Vista Unified School District only re-opened for in-person learning about a week ago and already the issue over how quickly the coronavirus pandemic has spread is of huge concern.
At Tuesday night's special meeting, the board agreed unanimously to close Mission Vista High School after two positive cases among students.
Vista Unified was already under scrutiny for its reopening plan. Unlike other school districts that have reopened slower, Vista Unified reopened all 28 schools starting last Tuesday.
Their new rule as of Tuesday night that now applies to all of their schools -- if any campus sees two positive cases, the entire school will shut down for a two-week quarantine. In addition to this, if any three schools have one case each at the same time, all three will close for that two weeks as well. The "Vista Virtual" method will be what students and staff pivot to when a closure occurs.
Following those rules, Mission Vista High School said they will close officially on Thursday as that special meeting didn't take place until Wednesday night. They also added that if San Diego County does drop into the most restrictive purple tier, they will close all schools until the county moves back into the red tier or better.
Since all 28 schools reopened, six positive cases have come back district wide with two of them being reported at Mission Vista High School and the other four spread out at four separate schools.
The district hasn't announced if that means all of those schools will enter a two-week quarantine as well, so there still are some questions related to the plan.
In an email sent to parents and students Wednesday morning, school officials said Mission Vista is expected to head back to in-person instruction on Monday, Nov. 9.
"Last evening, the VUSD Board of Trustees met to review the District’s reopening plan, specifically the status of Classic learning in VUSD schools. After much discussion, the school board decided to add a metric to the Vista Classic model that would cause a school to pivot to Vista Virtual in the event the school has two or more COVID-19 positive cases at the same time. The decision was made based on the need to maintain a conservative approach to health and safety and to ensure there is sufficient staffing to support student learning on campus. MVHS currently has two positive cases and will therefore pivot to the Virtual model beginning tomorrow, Thursday, October 29. Please make the necessary accommodations to have your student remain at home. Students will use the Vista Virtual learning model that they used during the month of September. We will send more details in the coming days. We anticipate a return to the Vista Classic in-person learning model on Monday, November 9, 2020. – Sincerely, Mr. Walden, Principal"