A second grader at J.H. McGaugh Elementary in Seal Beach recently tested positive for COVID-19. This week, the student’s classmates and teacher are under quarantine.
But since everyone was wearing masks, the exposed students don’t necessarily have to miss class.
That’s because of new quarantine rules from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). This year, if everyone involved in a COVID-19 exposure on campus was abiding by the indoor mask mandate, the unvaccinated students deemed a “close contact” (within 0-6 feet of an infected person indoors for more than 15 minutes over a 24-hour period) can opt for a modified 10-day quarantine also called the “quarantine at school” option.
These students can continue attending classes in-person as long as they:
- Do not develop symptoms
- Continue to wear a mask indoors and potentially outdoors
- Commit to getting tested for COVID-19 at least twice weekly over the 10-day quarantine
- Stop participating in all extracurricular activities at school, including sports, and in the community setting for the 10-day quarantine
For the 2021-22 academic year, the overarching priority of education and health officials is to maximize in-person instruction time for all students. The modified quarantine fits with that goal because it minimizes the number of days kids might be out of the classroom due to an exposure on campus.
Is quarantining at school safe? A FAQ page from the CDPH states: “Scientific research and experience from around the country demonstrate that when both parties are wearing facemasks appropriately at the time of a school-based exposure to COVID-19, in-school transmission is unlikely and students can safely continue in-person learning.”
Parents can opt to keep their kids at home for the quarantine. But for unvaccinated students who were unmasked during a classroom COVID-19 exposure, at-home quarantine is the only option. Vaccinated people do not have to quarantine after a known exposure but would need to get tested if they develop symptoms.
Vaccinated or not, anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 is asked to follow CDPH guidelines on isolation. Staff and students are asked to stay home from school if they have any COVID-19 symptoms. Families at the nine schools in the Los Alamitos Unified School District are sent a daily email reminding them of that.
While Los Al Unified and the Orange County Health Care Agency support the state’s modified quarantine options, some school districts may have different quarantine rules. Cypress School District specifies the quarantine at school option is only available “for school-based exposures.” “For student exposures that occurred outside the school, an at-home quarantine is required,” it states in its COVID-19 Safety Plan.
No distancing requirement may mean more ‘close contact’ exposures
The potential for a “close contact” COVID-19 exposure could be higher on campuses this year.
That’s because cases in the surrounding community are relatively high right now due to the Delta variant. In addition, California is not requiring a minimum physical distance between students in classrooms. That distancing requirement was eased, and universal indoor masking was enacted to ensure full-time in-person learning was possible.
Without distancing requirements, one infected person could trigger many “close contact” exposures with classmates. That’s what happened in the second-grade class at McGaugh, parents reported.
Parents Struggle to Get COVID-19 Tests
Three of those parents interviewed for this story said their kids are back in class and quarantining at school.
But they also said it’s been hard to meet the date-specific COVID-19 testing requirements of this option. Two said they struggled to get testing appointments for their kids through nearby pharmacies.
“I just really wish the school offered testing, that would have made this a lot easier,” Mindy Wagner, a parent of two LAUSD students, wrote in a text message. Wagner said she will have to pick her daughter up early from school one day to make one of the testing appointments.
Los Alamitos Unified Superintendent Dr. Andrew Pulver said the district is getting some free tests through the county that families will be able to access after signing up for a program. “We’re working on getting that up and running to be able to offer that to families,” he said on Monday.
Other Orange County school districts are already providing COVID-19 testing for students including Anaheim Elementary Unified. Cypress School District is offering self-collection COVID-19 testing kits for students and staff at schools. Santa Ana Unified is requiring weekly testing of students and staff on campus, the first district in the county to do so.
Another parent worried schools might not be adequately prepared with academic instruction plans for quarantined students.
“Given how contagious COVID-19 and this [Delta] variant is, I hope the school learns from this experience and puts in place remote learning contingency plans that include immediate access to online learning. That way, no child misses out on education and it creates more of an incentive for parents to test/keep their kids at home,” the parent wrote in a text message.
Dr. Pulver said students under an at-home quarantine should expect to get work from their school site. “It may take a couple days for the schools to be able to gather the work from the teacher,” Pulver said and likened it to the process for getting assignments for Independent Study.
In a call with reporters on Friday, Orange County’s Public Health Director Dr. Clayton Chau said schools must offer an “alternative for kids to continue with their education,” in the case of quarantining.
No State Guidance on Campus Closures
While the rules for quarantine have been revised, CDPH is not making recommendations about when to shut down a campus or classroom due to COVID-19 cases. “That [guidance] has gone away,” Dr. Chau said.
A school outbreak is considered three or more cases that an investigation proves are linked to an exposure on campus.
During the surge of COVID-19 cases in the community last winter, Los Alamitos High School switched to remote learning for a period after more than 200 students and staff were under quarantine as cases at the high school reached 37. Back then, a school would have to close if 5% of the campus population was infected with COVID-19, Dr. Pulver noted at the time.
LAUSD’s COVID-19 dashboard tracks current infections of staff and students and shows a total of 25 cases in the district as of August 30. The dashboard does not list how many people are under quarantine for being a close contact of an infected person at school.
Last week, Dr. Pulver told The O.C. Register that there are no outbreaks at any Los Al Unified campuses. “None of these cases have been linked to one another,” Pulver was quoted as saying and added that through contact tracing, the district found the infections happened off campus.
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