CA Shifts To 3-Foot Desk Spacing In School Reopening Plan

CALIFORNIA — As California seeks to quickly reopen K-12 campuses, the state relaxed a key guideline Saturday to allow students to sit 3 feet apart in classrooms.

The change reflects newly updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, which it updated Friday to recommend the reduced spacing from 6 to 3 feet.

"We are following the science," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, during a Friday news conference. "We have seen the science to make sure this is safe for schools."

But district officials will ultimately decide whether to adopt the revision.

"While we’ve not had internal discussions yet on this, I’m fairly confident that we will incorporate that CDC guidance into our own guidance," Paul Simon, Los Angeles County's chief science officer said Friday, the Santa Monica Press Daily reported.

However, Austin Beutner told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday that campuses within Los Angeles Unified would still reopen with a 6-foot spacing rule.

The district is the second-largest school system in the country and was scheduled to reopen in mid-April as cases continue to drop and vaccinations rise in the Southland — the county was previously dubbed the state's coronavirus epicenter.

In San Francisco, officials said that desks could be 4-feet apart "if needed to allow full in-person attendance," according to guidance from the county's health department. The county has yet to announce whether it will update guidance again.

In San Diego, classrooms were expected to reopen on or around April 12.

"It just means that we’re continuing to think through how to be safe inside a classroom environment," Nerel Winter, principal of Bostonia Language Academy in El Cajon, told KPBS on Friday.

The CDC also said certain settings would still warrant 6 feet of distance such as eating, singing, playing sports, sitting in common areas and while adults and students are interacting.

For elementary schools, the CDC advised at least 3 feet of space between desks, even in towns and cities where community spread is high, as long as students and teachers wear masks.

The CDC recommends 3 feet in middle and high school campuses, as long as there’s not a high level of spread in the community. If there is, 6 feet of distance should be maintained.

California's new guidance also warns that the 6 feet spacing rule could be upheld if "there are doubts about mask adherence."

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that 9,000 of the state's schools had reopened or planned to resume in-person instruction by May.

But desk spacing has been a major sticking point for health and education leaders as the state forges ahead with reopening plans. Reducing space between desks could allow for more students to fit in a classroom, but not everyone is convinced it's a safe bet to place moving forward.

"Physical distancing is a huge barrier to reopening schools for full five-day-a-week schedules," said Dr. Jeanne Noble, director of COVID-19 response for UC San Francisco’s emergency department, according to CalMatters.

"So it’s really time to look closely at the data and say is it necessary, because it’s going to keep millions of kids out of full-time school. The data tells us it’s not necessary, that masking is really the key to this."

As cases continue to fall in the Golden State, some 88 percent of Californians were living under lighter coronavirus restrictions in the red tier as of Sunday. The state has been on a rapid reopening pace since picking up the speed of its initially fumbled vaccine rollout.

Although supply still remains a major issue, Newsom said on Friday that everyone in California could become eligible for a shot by May.

"We're anticipating within 5 1/2 weeks, where we can eliminate all of the tiering, so to speak, and make available vaccines to everybody across the spectrum because supply will exponentially increase," he told reporters.

The state logged a record-breaking week inoculating residents, Newsom said Sunday, announcing that the state had administered 5 million more shots than any other state.

The state reported 3,350 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, a 1.8 percent positivity rate and 14,520,575 vaccine shots administered to date.