MILPITAS (CBS SF) – The Milpitas Unified School District said Sunday school students can return to virtual learning for at least the coming week as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to hamper the districts in the Bay Area that try to reopen to get the latest updates after the holidays.

The superintendent’s office released a statement stating: “During the week of January 10-14, MUSD school sites will be open for personal learning to meet the needs of our community. For parents / carers who care about the health and safety of their students, you can choose our independent study program, short or long term. “

The statement encouraged families to contact their school principal for more information on self-study.

The statement also states: “After consulting the Santa Clara County Office of Education, we learned that we cannot offer a ‘district-wide quarantine’ as stated in our Friday notice. Community quarantines can be declared by the district health authority.

“In order for us to contain the rise in COVID cases among students and staff, everyone must follow safety protocols for masking, vaccination, or refresher when authorized and available.”

“We have to find ways to live together and live with COVID. We are two years under our belt and have learned a lot, ”said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County Health Officer. “We have learned that in-person learning is what they need and distance learning does not benefit their mental health, emotional health and academic well-being.”

Other school districts in the Bay Area were motivated to avoid returning to distance learning.

The San Francisco Unified School District says it has distributed more than 50,000 COVID-19 tests in one week and will distribute more in the coming weeks.

“We are committed to keeping schools open as long as it is safe to do, and the Department of Health said that with our safety protocols, schools continue to remain low-risk environments,” said SFUSD spokeswoman Laura Dudnick.

The West Contra Costa Unified School District was able to close the school for two days from Friday by moving the non-teaching days in the academic calendar and will remain closed on Monday.

Tests at the district’s locations will be available again on Monday before schools reopen on Tuesday. WCCUSD hopes this long weekend will not only give them time to thoroughly clean their schools, but also allow students and staff to recover from COVID infections.

Milpitas Unified said families still concerned about sending students to school in their district can now conduct independent study for their children now that there will be no quarantine.

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In line with other Bay Area school districts that have been forced to close schools after facing staff shortages, low test availability and high COVID-19 case rates this week, Milpitas schools will open for most students from Monday through mid-January go back online temporarily.

The Education Committee of the Milpitas Unified School District voted on Thursday evening to send children back to virtual learning healthy to school by January 18.

“This week we had an exorbitant number of positive student and employee cases, which led to even more students and employees being quarantined,” said a letter from the school management to the school community. “In view of the number of cases, the possibility of being in close contact with a positive case has increased.”

The district is also struggling with a lack of teachers and staff. The district had 167 substitute teacher positions and 107 auxiliary positions that week, leaving administrative staff to teach instead of the teachers who stayed at home.

In Oakland, an organized teacher outage Friday caused the Oakland Unified School district to close at least 11 schools for the day. Teachers are calling for better safety measures for students, staff and teachers, and encouraging the district to teach online instead of face-to-face for two weeks.

In Milpitas, parents are required to sign an independent study contract so that their children can virtually go to school while the school is closed. The district also offers parents who have to work or whose household has insufficient internet connection the possibility of sending their children to school, where they can take part in classes virtually on the laptops provided by the district. All students enrolled in the classroom option will be mentored, said Scott Forstner, a district spokesman.

West Contra Costa schools and some private and charter schools are also temporarily closing, and others in the Bay Area are making efforts to keep classrooms open amid testing and staff shortages.

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