By Greta Nerad
Executive News Editor
And Clare Beezhold
News Editor
Faced with the global outbreak of COVID-19, or coronavirus, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District is in the midst of taking precautionary measures to prevent its spread and is making preparations for potential school closures.
The district is working in close conjuction with the Los Angeles County Department of Health to ensure it takes the appropriate precautions and is well-educated about the virus. Along with conducting more targeted custodial services and cancelling school trips abroad to safeguard against the virus, district teachers have begun preparing the protocol for handling school shut downs.
“You have to be ready for the worst case,” MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Mike Matthews said. “We want to be at a point where our teachers feel like they have a plan, they’re ready and they can jump on it if needed.”
MBUSD schools will remain open for the time being as advised by both the LACDH and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Matthews said yesterdy in an email to MBUSD parents and guardians.
In the event of LACDH-mandated school closures, the district is planning to continue with the scheduled school year online. At the middle and high school levels, teachers are organizing how they will use their existing educational platforms, such as Canvas and Google Classroom, to communicate with students.
“I’m proud of our staff for a good job of starting to prepare and not increasing anybody’s panic level,” Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale said. “We are safety first, we are responding to all rumors no matter how outlandish and we are prepared instructionally.”
According to Matthews, parents will play a key role in continuing with elementary education in the event of a closure. Google Classroom is used in most of the district’s elementary classes, especially for third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, making this transition relativey easy to make, Matthews said.
“I have great confidence they will figure out the best way to reach their students,” Matthews said.
District teachers have begun making these preparations to continue teaching so that students will earn credits and staff will be paid despite campus closures. To prepare for this scenario, Costa has a teacher piloting online classes with his zero period class for the next four weeks who will report the pros, cons and lessons learned back to the administration, Dale said.
Last Wednesday, Dale asked all the teachers to draft emails to send to their students in the event of a closure, and as of March 6, 101 out of the 106 teachers completed his request. According to Dale, he sent staff members experienced in working with technology to help teachers who are not accustomed to using electronic devices in their classes.
“We want to be at a point where our teachers feel like they have a plan, they’re ready to do it, and they can jump on it if needed,” Matthews said. “The worst it could get for us is that the health department would advise us to close our schools, in which case, we just want to be ready for that.”
French teacher Lauri Resnikoff voiced her concerns to Matthews and the MBUSD board members in an email that Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association President Shawn Chen forwarded to district teachers, encouraging them to send their thoughts to the board and Human Resources Director Suzanne Webb. According to Chen, although the union has not taken formal action, it does stand in favor of closing MBUSD’s schools.
“We would prefer to be on the side of caution because we don’t think it makes sense to endanger so many people recklessly,” Chen said. “I’d rather not wait until someone dies to make this decision; it just doesn’t make sense to take such risks.”
According to Matthews, there are no plans to close MBUSD’s schools for deep cleaning, but the custodial staff is being extra diligent in cleaning shared surfaces, such as drinking fountains and door knobs.
“We’re going to try to do our very best to take the precautions necessary to keep us open, but if for the safety of our students it’s best to close, we will take quick action,” Matthews said.
Although, MBUSD sports practices and events will continue, no event may have more than 100 spectators, Matthews said. The district has also cancelled all field trips and travel at least through the end of April.
These restrictions have affected Costa student trips, including both the Vice Principal Dr. Deborah Hofreiter-hosted choir trip to Italy and Spanish teacher Sandra Martinez-Sellan-hosted Education First trip to Italy and Greece, which were both set to occur over spring break. Costa cancelled the choir trip and postponed the EF trip to Thanksgiving break next year.
“I’ve been looking forward to going on a trip with the choir department since my freshman year, and I couldn’t believe it was canceled only a month before we were supposed to go,” choir member and senior Maggie Cubillos said. “We put so much work into our sound that it was heartbreaking for it to be canceled because of something completely out of our control.”
La Vista also had to cancel its trip to the Columbia Scholastic Press Association conference in New York next week because of the conference’s cancellation due to rising concerns about COVID-19. As of now, these students have received refunds for the conference fees and hotel bookings, but not their scheduled flights.
“The cancellation of the trip is really disappointing because the conference is so valuable,” English teacher and CSPA chaperone Keely Sweeny said. “It would have been a really exciting trip this year because La Vista is getting an award for last year’s publication, and the students who would be standing up there worked really hard.”
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