Manhattan Beach Schools Superintendent Issues New Monday Email

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA —

Good morning,

Last week, a number of communications came out of my office. I hope you all received last week’s Monday Morning Message, which will be a regular briefing for the foreseeable future. After the Board meeting on Wednesday, we published the board meeting highlights and shared those via Facebook. On Friday, we updated our “Facts vs. Rumors” webpage in response to some of the questions we have received or heard about. Here are some updates for this week.

• High Needs Hybrid: The first phase of our high needs hybrid begins this week. We are beginning special education assessments for students from preschool through grade 12. Also, we will begin bringing some of our preschool and elementary students back to campus to receive select specialized services from our DHH (Deaf and Hard of Hearing) and SDC (Special Day Class) staff.

• School Safety: I have heard from many parents that we are moving too slowly. While I understand the frustration, I will continue to emphasize safety as we restart in-person learning. We have worked collaboratively with employee groups and other stakeholders to develop comprehensive and well-articulated safety protocols, which you can see here. As we move into the next phases, we will continue to use safety measures that maximize safety for our students, our employees, and our community.

• TK-2 Waiver: We continue to meet with our employees, including our labor unions, focusing on in-person learning in our TK-5 grades. As part of this work, we will be finalizing elements of on-campus learning and discussing the unions’ support for the TK-2 waiver process. We have all other elements of the application process secured. Even though I believe that due to County requirements, with our schools having fewer free and reduced lunch students than almost all schools in the state, MBUSD schools have little hope of receiving one of the tiny number of waivers being issued, we will work to submit our application as soon as this Friday. All of our efforts are about being prepared to re-open all of our elementary schools as soon as the County allows, perhaps as early as November.

• Parent Surveys: We will soon be asking our elementary parents to make a decision. We need to know what each family’s plans are when our schools open. We will need to know whether parents are going to commit to remain in distance learning for the remainder of the year, or whether parents are committed to in person learning (when it re-opens) for the rest of the year. We will provide additional information about what that will look like in terms of academics, schedules, and safety when we send that survey out, but we will need your decision soon. And by the way, secondary parents ... your decision time is coming soon.

That’s all for this week. Keep your eye on our social media for more updates. Have a good week, everyone.

Mike Matthews
MBUSD Superintendent