Manteca Unified in-person learning is not being impacted by health orders triggered by San Joaquin County being pushed back into the COVID-19 purple tier due to the coronavirus being widespread in the county.
The district sent parents an electronic letter Monday spelling out Manteca Unified is complying with strict guidelines established by state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control for in-person learning. And because of that, Gov. Gavin Newson’s pandemic tier system dubbed Blueprint for a Safer Economy allows schools that have re-opened for in-person learning with pandemic protocols that have been implemented to continue to stay open.
Measures critical to provide the safest possible learning environment during the COVID-19 health emergency that Manteca Unified has deployed include smaller class sizes, students and staff wearing masks, appropriate social distancing, and hand washing among other mitigation measures.
Part of the mitigation plan is preparedness to quarantine individual students and/or staff, small groups, and classrooms when necessary.
A system is in place where close contacts will be quickly identified and notified with further health and possible quarantine instructions from a Manteca Unified school nurse or administrator. The district has six full-time staff nurses dedicated to contact tracing.
COVID-19 dashboard
Manteca Unified has taken an additional step that few other districts have done. Although county and state health officials have not required it, Manteca Unified has created their own COVID-19 dashboard.
It can be accessed at mantecausd.net/Page/1933
All current and confirmed COVID-19 cases involving a Manteca Unified student or staff member are reflected on this page. The numbers will be updated at a minimum of once per week and will reflect statistics for the previous 14 days from time of posting.
As of Monday, there were five student and four staff positive cases spread among 33 campuses. That compares to six student and five staff positive cases last week.
All of the nine current cases are external meaning tracing shows they did not contract COVID-19 in a school setting.
Those with symptoms will be reflected on the dashboard for 14 days after they were first detected. That dovetails into CDC guidelines that indicate a person is no longer contagious after 14 days of the first symptom appearing. The exception is those who become severely ill and require hospitalization. Once the 14 days lapse for that person, they will be taken off the dashboard count.
The dashboard lists every campus along with the total number of students and staff, number of confirmed cases involving students, the number of confirmed cases involving staff, and the proportion of school population.
If a partial, total school closure, or District closure is warranted, families will be contacted via email and/or phone and a swift transition to Phase 1: Off-Campus Learning will occur for the school(s) affected. The email and/or phone call will disclose as much information as possible relating to the events. MUSD will maintain confidentiality as required under HIPAA and FERPA and state law related to privacy of educational records.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
