St. Joachim School opens campus with TK-6 waiver, offering a peek at pandemic learning in Orange County
After enduring months of distance learning, largely separated from teachers and friends, TK-6 St. Joachim Catholic School students joyfully returned this week to the Costa Mesa campus to engage in a new school year, albeit with a pandemic twist.
Kids and parents arriving on campus posed for pics on the playing field, where gold letters staked in grass spelled out “Welcome Back Sea Kings.” Inside, instructors welcomed students with a smile and a quick temperature check. Most wore masks and sat at desks fitted with plexiglass dividers and spaced 6 feet apart.
The return was sanctioned by the California Public Health Department, which in August established a waiver process allowing Orange County Schools to resume in-person learning for lower grades, so long as the county made progress reducing coronavirus infections and met other benchmarks.
St. Joachim applied for a waiver Aug. 13 and was approved Sept. 2. Principal Lisa Gilbert said officials heard the news the following day.
“We knew kids needed to be on campus and needed to be back to somewhat of a normal setting,” Gilbert said. “We wanted to make sure we could meet everybody’s needs but still keep everybody safe.”
California has seen a 24% decline in statewide hospitalizations over a 14-day period and reports the 7-day average for positive infections is at 3.8%.
The Costa Mesa private school was one of 140 countywide to apply for the waiver. In the cities of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Fountain Valley, below are the 25 schools that applied:
- Costa Mesa: Christ Lutheran School; Mariner’s Christian School; Page Academy Newport Mesa; St. Joachim Catholic School; St. John the Baptist School; Waldorf School of Orange County
- Huntington Beach: Carden Conservatory; Grace Lutheran School; Hebrew Academy; Huntington Christian School; Le Port Montessori Huntington Harbor; Montessori Child Development Center; My First Montessori; St. Bonaventure School; Sts. Simon & Jude Catholic School; the Pegasus School
- Newport Beach: Carden Hall; Harbor Day School; Newport Christian School; Our Lady Queen of Angels School
- Laguna Beach: Anneliese Schools-Manzanita campus and Willowbrook campus; Top of the World Elementary; El Morro Elementary
- Fountain Valley: Fountain Valley Montessori Center
St. Joachim’s school’s seventh- and eighth-graders, and those who prefer the remote option, will continue with online lessons for the time being.
New state school reopening guidelines released last month placed Orange County on the first, most restrictive tier for having “widespread transmission.” But with a relatively flat rate of new cases, the county transitioned Tuesday to a less restrictive “substantial transmission” tier.
If trends remain positive for 14 days, Orange County schools can reopen without waivers as soon as Sept. 22. School districts across the county are hashing out plans for that important milestone while institutions with waivers prepare to welcome back students in higher grades.
Orange County restaurants, movie theaters, places of worship and museums can resume indoor operations at 25% capacity, while fitness centers must be limited to 10% capacity.
And, given the data coming in from the Orange County Health Care Agency, the picture looks somewhat promising.
Agency officials reported 194 new cases Wednesday and nine deaths, bringing Orange County’s total infections to 50,190 and its death toll to 1,065. An estimated 44,220 people are thought to have recovered from the virus.
With 5.2 daily positive cases per 100,000 people and a positive testing rate of 4.2%, the county continues to remain within the confines of the substantial transmission designation. Both numbers are a seven-day average and include a seven-day lag period.
Among the infected, 234 were being hospitalized Wednesday with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, while 62 were being treated in intensive care units.
A member of St. Joachim Catholic School’s reopening committee, junior high English teacher Jill Cavanaugh said she’s been keenly aware of the county’s virus transmission trends and what that could mean for teachers and students returning to campus.
While she and other teachers prepared this summer for the 2020-21 school year ahead, not knowing whether classes would be online or in person, Cavanaugh felt both the pull of wanting to be back in the classroom and the fear of possibly being exposed to the virus.
“It was kind of a roller-coaster — there was a ton of thinking and soul searching,” she said. “There were days I was terrified, thinking, how can I do this? I was scared to death. And other days, I was like, ‘Let’s go! I want to be back with my students.’”
Yet, once Cavanaugh heard from the school that TK-6 in-person learning had been given the green light, and she began organizing her classroom in preparation for the big day, her nerves began to calm.
On Tuesday, teachers spent much of the day getting students acclimated to the new rules of the school year. Kids seemed eager to learn what was expected of them. By Wednesday, classes shifted to traditional instruction.
Sue Kelly, whose 9-year-old son, Jack, entered the fourth grade at St. Joachim on Tuesday, can attest to her son’s enthusiasm to rejoin his classmates for the first time in 179 days.
“This Tuesday when it opened, he was up at 6 a.m., dressed and ready to go,” she said. “His smile was huge — he was very eager and very happy to see his friends.”
Gilbert said the school’s enrollment, a bit flat in recent years, has seen an uptick in 2020-21.
She credits the increase to St. Joachim’s rapid response to provide a comprehensive distance-learning plan immediately after March 13 closure of school campuses, which garnered a good reputation among local parents as complaints about other schools proliferated.
Gilbert also thinks people enrolled their kids when they learned the school had been granted a TK-6 waiver and would be reopening at a time when most larger districts have elected to stay online only.
“Parents wanted their kids on campus,” she said. “And they knew we were working on getting them back.”
COVID-19 stats for Orange County
Below are the cumulative coronavirus case counts and COVID-19 deaths for select cities:
- Santa Ana: 9,620 cases; 253 deaths
- Anaheim: 8,5966 cases; 229 deaths
- Huntington Beach: 2,274 cases; 69 deaths
- Costa Mesa: 1,739 cases; 24 deaths
- Irvine: 1,520 cases; 12 deaths
- Newport Beach: 1,080 cases; 22 deaths
- Fountain Valley: 482 cases; 10 deaths
- Laguna Beach: 197 cases; fewer than five deaths
The case counts followed by deaths, by age group:
- 0 to 17: 3,425; one
- 18 to 24: 7,496; four
- 25 to 34: 10,923; 15
- 35 to 44: 8,055; 30
- 45 to 54: 8,117; 93
- 55 to 64: 6,046; 153
- 65 to 74: 3,009; 211
- 75 to 84: 1,721; 226
- 85 and older: 1,361; 332
Updated figures are posted daily at occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/coronavirus-in-oc. For information on getting tested, visit occovid19.ochealthinfo.com/covid-19-testing.
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