“Its better to do it right than to do it fast. And to do it right in certain conditions takes more time. “ Deputy Superintendent Mark Luque, addressing school officials for the latest updates after the Governor announced on Monday that Kern County would move backwards into the purple tier. And in order for schools to return to in class instruction, the county must be in the red tier for 14 consecutive days. Luque says, “I think we’d be lucky if we see red again before February, just my thoughts.”
Luque says last week they received an update from the County Public Health Department stating that they missed their metrics for the first time. He said,“we were notified this morning that the adjusted case rate in Kern County is now at 17.9 percent, so it nearly doubled in a weeks time. “
And under the purple tier, only students with special needs are able to return to the classroom, which Luque says their original phased plan will continue to go through.
And as of Tuesday, Luque says they have returned 66 self contained Special Ed classrooms across the district. And they have another half set to return between November 30th - December 14th. This total number would then jump to 113 during that time.
Luque says those first two phases should get them through the holiday, and they’re hoping to allow their English learner students back in January. When Kern County does move back into the red tier, BCSD says they will have a hybrid model already prepared. This will not be finalized until December. Luque says,“this is where students would return to school for some defined portion of the week. If you had to decide between a cohort a/b model or a full distance learning model, where would you land?”
