Sacramento County is now in lower coronavirus tier. When can schools reopen to students?

Schools can soon reopen for in-person instruction for all students now that Sacramento County has maintained low coronavirus infection rates, and moved down from the high-risk purple tier to the state’s red tier Tuesday.

According to the state, schools must be in tier 2, the red tier, for at least 14 consecutive days before reopening.

This would be the first time most students in grades TK-12 can return to Sacramento County campuses since March.

It will be the first and only way forward for all middle and high school students to return to classrooms. County approved school waivers only allowed elementary-aged students to return.

Schools in Sacramento County must continue to follow the specific order issued by the health department on Aug. 28, according to a statement from county officials.

California’s Director of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said the two-week waiting period for red-tier counties to reopen schools allows communities to prepare. He hopes that people in counties like Sacramento that have moved from purple to red continue taking precautions to limit disease spread so that they do not regress in their progress fighting the disease, which may force them to return to a more restrictive tier.

Schools are not required to close if the county’s infection rate increases enough to move the county back to the more restrictive tier 1, also known as the purple tier, according to the School Re-opening Framework.

“We are also very aware that for parents and families the strain of working, the economy, living in a pandemic, and co-teaching their students is a heavy burden that you did not have before,” Natomas Unified Superintendent Chris Evans said in a statement to district families. “Please hang in there. In times like these, the months may feel like they will never end. But they will.”

Several of Sacramento County’s 13 public school districts have shared their reopening plans.

In a community statement, Elk Grove Unified School District officials said while they can open as soon as Oct. 13, “much work lies ahead.”

District and school officials will meet with labor partners to work on their district educational plan. The district will hold a school board meeting Oct. 14, where board members will discuss a realistic timeline on how to move forward with campus reopenings.

Folsom Cordova Unified Superintendent Sarah Koligian said district officials are monitoring their options.

“We are currently in the process of procuring and installing the necessary safety equipment at our sites and classrooms now,” she said.

In a contract with teachers, Folsom Cordova Unified agreed to upgrade its air filtration system. Some of the filters are on back order.

The district plans to bring students in special education and English language learners back on campus in small cohorts by mid-October.

Some school districts, like Natomas Unified, have already brought some students back to campus in small groups. About 400 district students who qualify as in need of in-person instruction have been on campus since the first day of school in day camps and cohorts.

“As for when we might return to hybrid or a transitional schedule, as I shared earlier, the earliest is possibly mid-October or later,” Evans said in a statement to district families. “A full return is definitely farther away right now, but with each new step, we learn, adjust, and prepare for when this day comes.”

In an interview with The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools Dave Gordon and county public health officials are developing procedures to identify and isolate new coronavirus cases in schools, including school “contact tracers.”

“I have said for a long time: reopening is not the problem, it’s being able to stay open,” Gordon said.

Once schools open, a case or two of COVID-19 won’t shut districts down as it did in March, according to county health officials. Districts could close classrooms, hallways or an entire school to prevent further spread of the virus.

Sacramento County health officials said they have been working with schools for several weeks to set up safety systems that include increased testing of school employees and mechanisms for isolating outbreaks that may occur.

Dr. Olivia Kasirye, Sacramento County public health officer, said the county is setting up a system that will allow school employees to be tested every two months for free under a contract the county has signed with private testing company StemExpress.

If a school suffers an outbreak, Kasirye said the county plans to set up a team that can do mobile testing on site at the school. “We want a quick turnaround.”

Ghaly said state officials are working with “a number of districts” to ensure there is adequate testing, disease investigation and contact tracing so that schools can reopen safely and won’t need to shut down again.

“We’re working hard with some school districts already and will continue in Sacramento and all counties considering to go back to in-person learning to make sure that we don’t see this open up one day, close the next,” Ghaly said. “That said, the safety and protection of our students and staff are of paramount importance and if after opening we see transmission rates go up very quickly, we will work with school districts to make sure the right decision is made across the state.”

It’s unclear if and when the all of the county’s school districts will open.

“The whole situation as we have seen over the last several months is a moving target,” Gordon said. “The number of cases could decrease, or they could take an uptick. It’s a tough decision because there is no prediction what will happen. You don’t want to open when you have to suddenly close.”

More than 30 Sacramento private schools have already received approval to reopen their campuses before Tuesday. About half of them are schools in the Catholic Diocese. The waiver allows school children from grades TK-6 to return to campus. Private schools can bring middle school and high school students back to the classroom as soon as mid-October.

The Bee’s Sophia Bollag contributed to this story.