SAN MARCOS — The San Marcos Unified School District held a governing board meeting Tuesday, Sept. 15, and unanimously approved a reopening plan for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year. The first vote on a reopening plan was held on July 21 and failed by a 3-2 vote.
Tuesday’s meeting began with news of the resignation of Superintendent Dr. Carmen García. The new acting superintendent, Tiffany Campbell, then presented the board with options for returning students to in-person learning.
The board approved a plan that will begin in-person learning for transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students beginning Oct. 12, and the remainder of elementary students beginning Oct. 19.
Middle and high school students, however, will not resume in-person learning until January.
All in-person instruction will be implemented in a hybrid model that will include two days of virtual learning and two days of in-person learning. Mondays will be virtual instruction for all students.
The district, which has more than 21,000 students in grades K-12, began classes virtually for all students on Aug. 18 per Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic plan for California’s schools. Schools located in counties that are on the Monitoring List must not physically open for in-person instruction until their county has come off the Monitoring List for 14 consecutive days.
San Diego County was on the Monitoring List but has remained off of it since mid-August.
On Aug. 2, families decided between two options for their students. The first is remote learning/in-person learning, which aims to ultimately return students to physical school if and when it is safe to do so. The second is the Leading Edge Virtual School (LEVS), which is an online option for students who wish to remain off campus for the entirety of the school year.
The board acknowledged that the approved reopening plan depends on whether San Diego County can keep its COVID-19 case rate low.
The county’s case rate entered purple-tier territory on Newsom’s color-coded COVID-19 monitoring system on Tuesday, which could ultimately prevent schools from resuming in-person learning.
The board also announced that Mark Schiel, SMUSD’s assistant superintendent of business services, is stepping down from his position.
