Dear Manzanita Community,

Greetings! Our full staff came together this past week via ZOOM to address the challenges of our planned school re-opening, scheduled for August 20th, just two weeks from next Thursday. Our team studied comprehensive health directives from the county and state, reviewed best practices for online and hybrid learning, developed schedules and curriculum, and reconnected as a community of educators and mentors. It was very productive week for Manzanita’s teachers, and followed summer-long planning by the administrative team.

Also during the past week, members of our administrative team participated in two 60-minute teleconferences with Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the Director of Public Health for the Los Angeles County Department of Health. These meetings included other members of leadership within Los Angeles county schools, as well as city and health officials. Presently, the county of Los Angeles is still awaiting clear directions from the state concerning the waiver process for re-opening schools within California counties that have high COVID-19 numbers (counties on the state’s ‘watch list’). I discussed this in last week’s update, which you can review here.

What we do know at this time is this:

The waivers to re-open will cover students in grades K through 6th
The county will work diligently to expedite the waiver approval process
The waiver application will require both county and state health department approval
Waiver applicants will have to demonstrate re-opening plans that adherence to all county and state health mandates regarding disease prevention and mitigation
Each county will be required by the state to consider local epidemiological data on COVID-19 cases when granting waiver requests within different regions of that county

This last piece of information is especially important for Manzanita School, and I would like to provide as much information as I can on this point. As most of you probably know, Los Angeles County is very large. In fact, there a total of 78 different school districts in Los Angeles County alone. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the largest, followed by Long Beach Unified. In their teleconference yesterday, the county health directors informed us that they would be partitioning the county by school district boundaries in determining which schools (public and private) would be allowed to submit a waiver to re-open K-6th grades for in-person learning. That is, if a private school is located within a public-school district’s geographic boundary, and if that region has particularly high COVID-19 numbers, then that school would not be eligible to apply for a waiver. The specifics of this information is among the points which the county is waiting to receive from the state health department. I have formally submitted my question to the county concerning LAUSD, whose boundary encompasses Manzanita School. Being a very large district (about 800 square miles), I have asked Dr. Ferrer’s office if they would look at the six sub-districts within LAUSD as separate geographic regions. This information will be very important in determining if MNZ will be eligible to apply for the waiver to re-open the lower grades for in-person learning. (As a school leader, I was given a private line where I could submit my question, since not all questions could be answered on the teleconference call. I am looking forward to the reply).

As I have indicated, this waiver application process will become much more clear once the state provides the information on waivers to each of the counties. In yesterday’s call, Dr. Ferrer was confident that this would happen today (Friday), and that we schools could therefore expect to see the county’s application for the waiver as early as this coming Monday. This application information will include that important local epidemiological data indicating whether the school is within a region eligible to apply. Manzanita is located within a geographic area (the Santa Monica Mountains) which currently has low COVID-19 cases per capita, when compared with other parts of Los Angeles county. It will be important for us to see how the county reflects on the regional data within the LAUSD boundaries. As noted, we will update you all as soon as we have this information.

In the meantime, Manzanita is planning for multiple contingencies. We are working tirelessly to ensure that all MNZ students and families will have an engaging and safe educational experience, whatever the circumstances. Specifically, if all classes must begin online, we intend to structure these virtual learning groups in the same ‘pods’ of students and staff with which we would operate as pods on campus and in-person. This will allow for the most seamless transition back to the physical campus when that time comes. We understand that the waiver process applies only to students in grades 6 and below, which means students in grades 7 through 12 will need to wait for countywide COVID-19 numbers to come down before we can come off the state’s ‘watch list’ and return to in-person learning. While it is unlikely this will happen before August 20th, Dr. Ferrer expressed optimism that LA County is trending in a better direction than it was three weeks ago. We on the MNZ team remain optimistic that we can find a way to offer in-person instruction and connection for our community this year, so as to not have all students remaining in Manzanita Virtual Bridge. This is our commitment, and the creative wheels of our remarkable and imaginative team are truly spinning to make this happen. With all that said, we do appreciate the magnitude of uncertainty in this current situation, and the myriad challenges that this reality has set before us.

In addition to planning for diverse instructional scenarios, we are diligently putting together those components of the waiver application which we know will be required, including demonstrated acquisition of adequate PPE (personal protective equipment), indicators of support from key stakeholders including staff and parents, outlining of schedules for on-campus instruction, and clearly articulated protocols to meet the state and county safety requirements.

We will be revising our published “Plans for Re-Opening,” which we originally sent to families on July 19th, and which can presently be viewed again here. Once this plan has been updated, we will send it to you. Additionally, we will be holding a series of online orientation meetings for parents, to be scheduled for within the next three weeks. We will ask that all enrolled families attend one of these meetings. We will look forward to that, as it will be very nice to connect with you all, and to get ‘current’ together about our lives, circumstances, and school’s plans and protocols moving forward. Please keep an eye out for these communications coming your way.

We genuinely appreciate how truly stressful this ongoing uncertainty is for all of you, and also for our beautiful students. Please continue to support your children in remaining positive and hopeful, as that is such an important medicine for them in these times.

We remain grateful to be in this unique moment together, as a community, with the best intentions for our youth in our hearts and in our minds.

In Gratitude and With our Love,

~Dr. Paul & the MNZ Team