MBUSD granted waiver to begin in-person kindergarten through second grade instruction
Students from kindergarten to second grade will return to classrooms part-time due to MBUSD's successful waiver application. Photo
Students from kindergarten to second grade will return to classrooms part-time due to MBUSD’s successful waiver application. Photo
Parents desperate to have their young children back in classrooms scored an unexpected victory Thursday afternoon when the Manhattan Beach Unified School District’s waiver request was granted by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Thursday.
Superintendent Mike Matthews, in an email to district parents, announced that the waiver application — which included letters of support from both MBUSD labor unions and a letter from Mayor Richard Montgomery on behalf of the city — had been accepted.
“This afternoon, I received notification that all five elementary schools in MBUSD were approved for the TK-2 Waiver that we applied for on October 23,” Matthews wrote. “I will be communicating with our teachers and staff tomorrow, and I will provide more details about this re-opening in my Monday Morning Message. I am thrilled that our preparations and our health and safety protocols met all of the requirements set forth by the County and the State. I am also grateful for the support of our unions, our employees, and our community. While not all of our employees or our students will be returning to campus, we will continue to provide a high quality distance learning program during this time.”
Matthews thanked everyone for their patience and support and stressed that any parents who had not notified the district that they’d like their child back in the classroom needed to do so by Friday.
“If you are a parent of a TK-2 student, and you have not yet turned in your decision, please do so no later than tomorrow (click here for survey),” he wrote. “Once I have received all parent requests, we can make the necessary class changes to address the needs of all stakeholders and I can provide a start date for our TK-2 Hybrid.”
The waiver application had appeared to be a long shot, something Matthews made clear in the days before he submitted it.
At the time, the guidelines indicated that only six schools per LA Supervisorial district would be approved per week and priority will be given to schools with the highest percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch. MBUSD has among the lowest percentages of these students in the state and the very lowest in LA County.
“I know we’re at the very end of the pecking order for that and so I don’t know if it will actually happen, but I hope we can do it,” Matthews said at the Oct. 21 school board meeting. “It’d be a strong signal to our community, it’d be a strong signal that our employee groups and the district and parents are coming together for the same cause. I think it could be a good thing for us.”
Matthews met with LA County officials the day he submitted the applications for all five MBUSD elementary schools and lobbied that the number of applications granted be increased. He was apparently successful. ER