Las Virgenes Middle & High Schoolers Return To Campus

CALABASAS, CA — Las Virgenes Unified School District took another giant leap forward Monday in bringing back its students.

Students in Cohort A, one of three cohorts designated for secondary school students, returned to the district’s three middle schools and two high schools. They are some of the first middle and high schoolers to return to campus in LA County, and this week, the district plans to welcome back the remainder of its 7,000 students.

“I think it will be very exciting to go to school and be with my friends, just to have those little conversations we haven’t had in class,” Calabasas High School senior Bethany Gould told Spectrum News.

Still, those conversations won’t last very long - only one third of students will be on campus each day. Students in grades 7-12 will be alphabetically divided into three separate cohorts, per state and county guidelines. Every day, each cohort will spend two blocks in either the morning or the afternoon of live lessons, either virtually or on campus. During the second half of the day, they will learn asynchronously through homework, reading, projects, and more. Students can expect to be back on campus about two times a week, for two and twenty minutes each day. A list of the different schedules of Cohorts A, B, and C can be found on the school's Return to Campus website.

But as Gould told Spectrum News, “something is better than nothing.”

Las Virgenes K-5 students are already back on campus for some of the week, and the district’s middle and high schools are following the same safety precautions. Students must complete a COVID-19 health screening each day before coming to campus, and must be cleared before they can enter. Thermal scanners will evaluate temperatures as soon as each student enters campus. Students with high temperatures will receive an active screening, and will be sent home with a temperature of higher than 100.4. Students exhibiting COVID-19 will be placed in an isolated area, and asked to return home.

School buildings will be cleaned in between morning and afternoon sessions, and again at the end of the day using electrostatic cleaners. Air ventilation and HVAC systems also circulate fresh air.
One major difference is that the CDC now recommends that students stay three, rather than six, feet apart, if mask use is universal and transmission is low. The district has said that since it began opening to students in October, no new cases have been transmitted. LVUSD Superintendent Dr. Dan Stepenosky told KABC News that the new three-feet regulation means that more students will be allowed on campus, although it is not yet clear how this will affect the schedules.