La Cañada public and private schools respond to coronavirus threat by going virtual
As reports of coronavirus infections inched closer to home Thursday evening, La Cañada Unified School District officials decided in an emergency meeting to close schools Friday and the next week to begin a transition to remote instruction.
Meanwhile, several La Cañada private schools are crafting similar strategies for keeping community members safe, canceling on-campus instruction and giving faculty members time to develop online lesson plans.
Among the institutions announcing the physical closure of campuses and a shift to remote learning are Flintridge Preparatory School, St. Francis High School, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and La Cañada Preparatory/ The Learning Castle.
La Cañada Unified faculty and staff were told to report to work Friday at Paradise Canyon, Palm Crest and La Cañada elementary schools and La Cañada High School 7-12, while parents and students had the option of retrieving needed items before a prolonged — but still undetermined — period of distance learning.
No cases of the novel coronavirus have so far been reported occurring in La Cañada Flintridge, which gives schools an opportunity to self-quarantine and prevent the spread of a virus that, as of noon Friday, had been identified in 40 patients in Los Angeles County.
“It’s not just a matter of an emotional response or a fear-based response,” LCUSD Supt. Wendy Sinnette said of the decision. “The research that has come my way has largely demonstrated that we’re at a sort of pivotal time, whereby if we take action, we would be contributing to the greater good...in terms of slowing the spread (of the virus).”
Sinnette said instructors would use Friday afternoon and part of next week to develop online lesson plans and craft a strategy for continuing to provide learning opportunities, whatever lies ahead.
Online instruction would likely begin sometime next week.
Parents and educators at Thursday’s emergency meeting spoke emphatically both for and against the idea of school closures as a means of stemming the potential spread of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, at a time when testing is scant and with no potential vaccine on the horizon.
Nazanin Matloubi, a Kaiser Permanente neurologist and mother of two LCUSD students, urged for immediate school closures to prevent pandemic exposure scenarios being seen in countries like Italy and her native Iran.
“People are dying. And yes, our kids are not getting it, but they are carriers,” Matloubi said. “If we have one case, we’re finished. Close your schools — don’t let that one case happen.”
Parent Kristine Kasumyan said closing schools could take healthcare worker parents off the front lines and create unintended consequences as high school students miss out on hands-on lab classes and valuable AP test prep.
“If we shut down the schools for two weeks, what happens when they come back? Will we have to shut down again?” Kasumyan wondered.
District officials acknowledged they were in uncharted territory. Proactive school closures could mean foregoing average daily attendance funding schools rely on. Currently, LCUSD receives nearly $1 million a week based on attendance rates.
Sinnette said she would continue to work with county officials and explore all possible options. Another emergency meeting of the LCUSD Governing Board will take place the week of March 23, at which point officials have said they will provide an update to the public.
La Cañada private schools draft response plans
On Friday, as Los Angeles Unified School District and Pasadena Unified announced physical campuses would close to instruction starting Monday, several local private schools in La Cañada Flintridge confirmed they were already devising plans to transition to online learning.
Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy closed its physical classrooms Friday to some 400 students to give teachers time to develop a continuity of learning plan that will begin with remote classes Tuesday and run through April 3, the Friday before the campus’ spring break.
FSHA’s boarding students will be allowed to remain on campus as long as there is no current risk or exposure and will have the option to stay with their local guardians, a spokeswoman said Friday. They, too, will attend classes remotely.
Flintridge Preparatory School allowed some 500 students on campus to meet with teachers on Friday before going home and preparing for online instruction to begin on Wednesday.
Prep students will begin distance learning on Wednesday and practice through the remainder of next week before heading into spring break on March 23, according to a statement issued by Headmaster Peter Bachmann.
“I have made my decision in consideration of what is best for the overall health of our community,” Bachmann said in the statement. “I am deeply hopeful that this move to online learning will ensure that we can enjoy the public activities that define our school when we return to campus.”
Officials from both FSHA and Flintridge Prep confirmed no cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, have been identified on campus.
While St. Francis High School remained open Friday with no known cases of coronavirus reported, Chief Operating Officer Andy Burghdorf said facilities would close to some 600 students on Monday and Tuesday as staff inservice days to allow remote instruction to begin Wednesday.
“We think giving our students the opportunity to continue to learn at home is the safest option at this point,” Burghdorf said Friday. “The best-case scenario is we get our students back in school in person, but the reality is, this is probably going to get worse before it gets better.”
La Cañada Preparatory School — which, along with the Learning Castle, serves some 480 children in transitional kindergarten through eighth grade — announced Thursday it had moved up its spring break to begin that day and run through March 27, after a parent in the school community was reportedly being tested for coronavirus.
“This wasn’t somebody who had direct contact with any of us here,” said school co-director Justin Whalin. “If we felt there was ever an exposure to this individual, we’d be acting differently.”
Whalin confirmed remote learning at La Cañada Prep would begin March 30 when the instructional calendar resumes following spring break.
As of Friday, La Cañada’s Hillside School and Learning Center and Child Educational Center (CEC), which offers after-school programs to LCUSD families, reported classes were still open while educators and officials monitored news alerts coming from the county Public Health Department.
CEC Executive Director Elyssa Nelson confirmed employees planned to attend a Los Angeles County Public Health Department telebriefing for early childhood education programs on Friday, and that the school was not accepting new enrollments.
Hillside School Executive Director Bob Frank said the school’s 40 students would stay home on Monday to conduct distance learning on a one-day trial basis and return to campus Tuesday to discuss the process and work out any kinks.
Most teachers deliver online classes during summer school, Frank said, so the transition should be relatively smooth.
“Our motto is urgency without panic,” he added. “We want to be concerned about [coronavirus]. We want to be urgent about it. But we don’t want to be panicked.”
