Blustery gusts of chilly air and swirling autumn leaves provided a fitting backdrop for the winds of change moving through St. Maria Goretti School Monday morning.
From a line of cars stretching across the campus, parents dropped off young students sporting new uniforms, backpacks, and face masks as the Long Beach school on Oct. 26 became the first Catholic school in Los Angeles County to reopen for in-person instruction since the coronavirus (Covid-19) shutdown last March.
After scanning their students’ foreheads with digital thermometers, face-masked teachers welcomed them into sanitized classrooms, where desks were spaced 6 feet apart and, per some parents’ request, were outfitted with plexiglass partitions.
It was a historic moment for Maria Goretti’s principal, teachers, and staff, who have been working since last spring on a plan for safe, on-site learning….
Guidelines set by LA County only allowing in-person instruction for TK through second grade to return to campus meant that about 40 of the school’s 170 enrolled students came back on Monday.
The TK and kindergarten students will receive full-time in-person instruction, while first- and second-graders will follow a hybrid schedule. Students also have the option of continuing remote learning from home, which began in late August for the new academic year.
The school’s return to campus was thanks to a streamlined LA County waiver program approved Sept. 29. The program allows public and private schools to apply for waivers for in-person instruction of students in grades TK through second if they meet certain criteria. A maximum of 30 schools will be permitted to open each week.
Because LA County remains in the purple (highest risk) tier, in California’s color-coded system, a fuller reopening of schools is still not allowed until the county’s Covid-19 metrics improve to the less restrictive “red” tier and remains there for at least two weeks, as has been the case in neighboring Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties.
As of last week, 110 public and private schools in LA County had applied for waivers, 36 of which are Catholic schools. Holy Angels in Arcadia also recently won waiver approval and is preparing to start in-person instruction Nov. 10….
The above comes from an Oct. 27 story in Angelus News.
Their school is named after a sainted 11 year old girl, kids are strong! Let them go back to school. Open the schools, the churches and the country!
I went walking in a park a few hours ago, and I do not wear a mask while walking but just distance from others. No one had a problem there as some runners were without masks and distanced, some walkers and the sports teams had masks and still distanced, unless they were families. When I was almost near to a child who did not have a mask the child already knew to move away from me even before I moved the other way from her. Most parents have already trained their children well.
Anne TE, if more people acted as you did we would be one step closer to shutting down this terrible virus. We can open the schools if we do it correctly. The problem is that too many folks want to just let the kids develop herd immunity and hope for the best, even in areas where the virus is spreading.
I do think some people already have immunity to it. I might even have immunity as in the early part of the year when COVID was already in my area, I was hugging my grandchildren, who soon got sick from a previous party: getting holy water on my face from a commonly used holy water fount; receiving Communion on the tongue at traditional and newer Masses, and for some reason I just did not get it. I did do a novena to St. Blaise since I did not get my throat blessed this year.
We do need to be careful but not overly so.
One thing I did not do during the early part of the year. I never took Communion from the common chalice as I was taught not to drink from another’s cup nor from his/her plate if he had already used it, except in emergencies. It was Jewish custom for the Apostles to have their own cups at a Seder. There does not seem to be any evidence that the Lord did otherwise. According to custom he would have consecration the cups all at the same time just as Jewish people still bless the separate cups at Passover. Intinction for both kinds of Communion is safer.
I meant intinction is safer if the priests and communicants are taught properly how to give and receive Communion than many drinking out of a common chalice. None of that is necessary, though, in the Latin Rite because the Host contains BOTH the body and blood, and that is all that is needed for laypeople to receive full Communion.
It will be remarkable if half of Catholic schools in L.A. survive.