William S. Hart Union High School District officials announced Sunday Santa Clarita Valley public junior highs and high schools would not be returning to campus in October, pushing the potential timeline for partial reopening to Nov. 13.
In an email sent to district families Sunday, Hart district officials said reopening has always been dependent upon meeting the state and county guidelines, explaining that the Oct. 19 partial reopening date is no longer an option.
“We have been told that L.A. County will be required to qualify for four consecutive weeks before schools can be eligible to reopen (instead we were originally told two),” Superintendent Mike Kuhlman wrote in the email.
While Public Health officials announced last week that the county’s data metrics fell to an adjusted case rate of 7.0 per 100,000 people, qualifying L.A. County to move into Tier 2 of the state’s blueprint for reopening, the county needs to sustain these figures for four consecutive weeks until that happens, per district officials.
This timeline takes the district beyond the proposed Oct. 19 date, instead pushing the proposed reopening calendar back to the next logical date: Nov. 13, the district’s second progress report date.
Reopenings would not be automatic once the county passed the allotted time, with a revised Public Health order needed for schools to be given the green light to reopen, while the county may also weigh in with additional requirements at that time.
“Therefore, the Hart district will continue in an exclusively online format until state and county guidelines enable us to consider a partial reopening,” Kuhlman wrote. “Thank you for your patience and positivity in the face of so many unique challenges.”
Earlier this month, Kuhlman also made it clear that a “full reopening” for the fall would not be what some might expect, with Hart district officials still planning on implementing a blended learning model when in-person classes resume.
