SMMUSD Adapting To New CDC Guidelines 'With Urgency'

MALIBU, CA — The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is reassessing its reopening protocols based on new CDC guidelines allowing for three feet rather than six feet between masked students.

Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati wrote in an email that the district is working on negotiating details with the teacher’s union “with urgency” so that students can return to full hybrid schedules by April 12, after spring break.

“We have been working with our Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association to adapt to this new guidance and our facilities team will be moving furniture back into classrooms from the previous six-foot guideline during spring break,” Drati wrote.

Drati noted that six feet of distancing will still be required between teachers and students, and during times like eating and drinking when a mask is temporarily removed. It is unclear if the district will adopt the new CDC three-feet guidelines for classrooms, and/or allow more students on campus as a result.

The LA County Department of Public Health has endorsed the new CDC guidelines, meaning that districts are free to allow three feet of distance between students if they wish.

“We are preparing now so that our schools are ready for any reduction of physical distancing requirements,” Drati said in a Friday email, but LA County had endorsed the new CDC guidelines. “We will be ready to adjust quickly to any change in the guidance we are required to follow.”

Drati said that updated plans will be released Friday. In the meantime, the district is sending a survey to SMMUSD parents for feedback.

Currently, students in grades 6-12 have returned in a limited capacity. Each class was on-campus one time this week and last week for an orientation, where they are meeting their teachers in person, engaging in various icebreaking and teambuilding activities, and learning the myriad health and safety protocols in place. Though each school's schedule will be a little different, Drati said he expects the full hybrid schedules will be up and running by April 12, after the weeklong spring break.

Each district school is implementing one of three versions of a hybrid schedule that put students in classrooms for a minimum of 10 hours a week: either a cohort model in which four days a week, one group comes to school in the morning for roughly 2.5 hours while another group learns at home, and the cohorts reverse after a midday cleaning; a model in which four days a week, students return in-person to school in the afternoon, and have distance learning in the morning, with the option to learn virtually in the afternoons; or an option in which students participate in on-campus learning two full days a week from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in divided groups, and participate in distance learning for the rest of the week.

Families that wish to continue learning only virtually have that option.

On Thursday at 7 p.m., the district will hold a virtual health symposium featuring Dr. Drati, Senator Ben Allen, and other health experts on the impacts of COVID-19, reopening efforts, and COVID's long-term effects on education.