Wine Country Times

Santa Rosa Schools have reached a deal with teachers to develop a plan to reopen schools for in-person learning on Thursday, April 1.

Superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools Dr. Diann Kitamura explained the details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) plan during a March 19 interview with KSRO FM News.

Teachers and staff will have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccination before returning to schools. Kitamura explained that Santa Rosa schools had to get some help from Sen. Mike McGuire and Gov. Gavin Newsom's Office to accomplish this goal on time. Officials worked with the district to get 1,500 doses of the vaccine to ensure that schools could reopen on  April 1, KSRO FM News reported.

"I reached out to McGuire to get some help because it would have pushed back our date later than April 1, and luckily we were able to continue on with our vaccinations with the help of Mcguire and Newsom’s office," Kitamura said in the interview.

Kitamura told KROS FM News that site verification teams will go through a checklist to make sure everything is ready for students to return to classrooms safely.

“The teams are made up of various stakeholders, teachers, nurses, administration and classified staff to just go through and make sure that all the different requirements that we need to meet based on guidance from the CDHP and local public health are met," Kitamura said.

The CDC recently announced that it has revised its school safety guidelines to say that students can safely sit three feet apart in classrooms as long as they wear masks. Kitamura said that Santa Rosa schools will continue to operate with the six-foot distancing rule.

"In our MOU we have agreed to the six-foot distancing and we have set our schedules, everything around six-foot distancing, and so we’re just going to go with that until the end of the school year," Kitamura said.

Classrooms have been broken into four different groups for a staggered schedule. 

Group A of Grades KA-6, and Special Ed and Newcomers in grades 7-12 will begin on April 1 and will attend in-person school Mondays and Tuesdays. Group B of Grades KA-6, and Special Ed and Newcomers in grades 7-12 will begin on April 2 and will attend in-person school Thursdays and Fridays. Group A of Grades 7-12 will begin April 26 and will attend in-person school Mondays and Tuesdays. Group B of Grades 7-12 will begin April 29 and will attend in-person school Thursdays and Fridays. All students will take distance learning for the days of the week they are not attending in person.

Kitamura said that families that wish to continue to with distance learning will have the option to do so.