All Sonoma County schools shift to online classes under rules issued by Gov. Newsom

No students will be returning to their classrooms in Sonoma County when the new school year opens next month, the result of a decision Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to close every campus in all 32 counties currently on the state’s COVID-19 watchlist.

All schools in Sonoma County will start the new year with every student enrolled in online classes under state guidelines issued by Newsom. Schools will be prohibited from reopening their campuses for classroom instruction until the county has been off the state watchlist for 14 consecutive days.

Sonoma County, which fell onto the watchlist on July 10, has seen its coronavirus cases soar in the last month, pushing many of its 40 individual school districts in recent days to move away from plans to offer a mix of classroom and online instruction — two days on, three days off — and move all classes online. Newsom’s announcement Friday makes those deliberations essentially moot.

“I think it is a good idea because our case rates are going up,” Sonoma County Public Health Officer Sundari Mase said. “I think the state of California has been following the metrics all along.”

The sweeping move caught some off guard. On Monday, Newsom insisted that a statewide policy would be ineffective in a state with more than 1,000 individual school districts serving more than 6 million students. “Each district is unique and distinctive,” he said.

But at a meeting with 58 county schools chiefs and 58 public health officials that same day, officials expressed frustration that crucial calls were being made piecemeal county by county and district by district, according to Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington, who was on the call. The feedback might have swayed the governor, he said.

“I think what happened in that Monday meeting generated this response,” Herrington said.

“Since we’ve issued our guidance, conditions have changed dramatically,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said during a media briefing Wednesday.

When asked about the turn, Newsom said the move was not unexpected.

“We have been at this for months now,” he said. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. This is not sprung on people. This is not a shock just a few weeks before the school year."

Local education officials have for months been crafting return-to-school plans that include options for both in-class and online learning plans. But in the past week, in the wake of overall infections locally topping 2,000 and the death toll rising to 19 in Sonoma County, many districts had already made the call: Classes will start online.

Sonoma County’s largest district, Santa Rosa City Schools, sent out a letter Wednesday to parents of its approximately 16,000 students saying they would start the year online. The county’s second-largest district, Petaluma City Schools, sent a similar email to its approximately 7,800 families Thursday.

Bennett Valley had also announced it would begin the year online, as did Rincon Valley and West County Union High School districts. Superintendents from Kenwood, Mark West and Windsor were expected to make similiar decisions in the coming days, and the Cotati-Rohnert Park board was slated to vote next week.

Putting districts on the same page allows officials to direct their focus to distance learning and what happens when classrooms do open — as well as what protocols to follow should they need to close again, Herrington said.

"It’s probably a good idea that we have consistency of action,“ he said.

Now school districts must turn their attention to implementing online classes, a learning model that was largely panned last spring when schools were shuttered almost overnight. Even as districts scrambled to provide computers and Wi-Fi hot spots to students, many raised concerns about inconsistent implementation and disengaged students who were checking out and falling behind.

In his press conference Friday, Newsom sought to reassure parents of the state’s more than 6 million school kids that the distance learning experienced in the spring will not be replicated this fall.

“Bottom line — learning in the state of California is simply non-negotiable,” he said. “School must provide meaningful instruction.”

Classrooms cannot reopen until the county is removed from the state watchlist for 14 straight days. The county was placed on the watchlist on July 10 and is subject to tighter restrictions on public activity and business operations for three weeks.

To be removed from the watchlist, the county must meet state benchmarks designed to track the spread of the virus and its ability to respond. The state evaluates six criteria: testing capacity, positive test results, coronavirus cases, increases in hospitalizations, available ICU beds and available ventilators. Counties are placed on the watchlist if they are out of compliance with metrics for three consecutive days.

You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.

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