Officials answer parent questions ahead of broad Sonoma County school reopenings

Sonoma County will not require school staff to present proof of vaccination as many K-12 schools prepare to start the school year this week, but education and health officials in a webinar Tuesday pointed to still-rising vaccination rates among school staff and the general community as one important safeguard.

As the countywide rate of fully and partially vaccinated people age 12 and older stood at 79% Tuesday, Steve Herrington, Sonoma County superintendent of schools, said that vaccinations among his own agency and school-based staff in general may be even higher. He estimated that around 85% of Sonoma County school-based employees are fully vaccinated, based on numbers from vaccine clinics hosted by the Sonoma County Office of Education and its online assistance connecting employees with vaccinations through other clinics.

SCOE reports a 95% vaccination rate among its own staff, he said.

“I really applaud the Sonoma County Office of Education’s efforts in getting their staff vaccinated,” said Dr. Sundari Mase, health officer for Sonoma County. “It was an incredible effort and clearly a very successful one.”

Community members’ questions during the webinar, jointly hosted by SCOE and Sonoma County’s Department of Health Services Tuesday afternoon, ranged in topic from mask requirements and vaccines to independent study offerings for students who opt to stay home.

This school year will see more students return to campus for more time than at any point during the pandemic. Indoor masking, rigorous cleaning and flexible quarantine protocols are critical lines of defense against the spread of COVID-19, especially as the delta variant spreads rapidly among the unvaccinated population.

But officials also warned that the flux of shifting goalposts for schools is not yet over.

"We have learned through last year and the half-year before that that the guidance changes as the conditions change,“ Herrington said. ”And we anticipate that the guidance will change as the conditions change this year.“

For now, officials said, the default setting will see a full-time in-person return for most students, with masks required indoors under guidance from the California Department of Public Health. Masks are optional outdoors.

Some Bay Area school districts have also imposed requirements for staff and students to either present proof of vaccination or undergo regular testing. The San Francisco Unified School District announced such a requirement for its 10,000 staff just hours before the Sonoma County webinar.

Mase said that the county is not requiring such measures, though she touched on a factor that school officials across the country have cited as part of their decision to forgo a mandate.

“At this time, there isn’t a mandate,” she said. “It is a vaccine that’s still under an emergency use authorization and hopefully soon will be fully cleared by the FDA.”

For any student who feels unready to retun to in-person learning, schools are also required to offer a robust independent study option.

Herrington recommended that parents who are interested in keeping their students remote at least at the start of the year contact their home district to learn whether it is offering its own independent study program or contracting with another district to provide one.

Tens of thousands of students are set to return to campuses this week. Roseland, Wright and Geyserville Unified return Wednesday, and Santa Rosa, Windsor Unified and others kick off the year Thursday.

If a case is reported in a classroom, schools will respond based on the circumstances of the exposure, in accordance with state guidance. If the infected person and all students and staff exposed to them were masked, then a “modified quarantine” is allowed, enabling students and staff to continue returning to the classroom as long as they remain masked, have no symptoms and submit to twice-weekly testing.

Take away masks or add symptoms to the equation, however, and it’s more likely that exposed people will need to quarantine at home.

Increasing access to vaccines will also change the outlook. Dr. Urmila Shende, the county’s vaccine chief, said in response to a viewer question that the most current timelines for vaccines to be available to children ages 5 to 11 years old point to around November or December.

In the coming months, SCOE will continue to host vaccine clinics available to eligible students and families who have not yet received both doses.

“The best protection against COVID and the delta variant is to have more of the population vaccinated,” Shende said. “Children for the most part do not contract the infection at school. They contract it at home and from large and small gatherings. So the more of a protective bubble that we can create around that child, the less chance that that child is going to become ill.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.