Coronavirus in rural America (Part CLI): Rural California schools, with low vaccination rates and high infection rates, bearing brunt of COVID closures this fall

Ed Source reports about school closures in rural California, where closures are proving more disruptive and common than in urban areas.  Last fall, it was just the opposite, as many rural schools opened with precautions, as reported here, and metro schools educated almost exclusively online.  

Here's an excerpt from Diana Lambert's story, which focuses on schools in Lassen County and its seat, Susanville.

This week, at least five schools were closed to tamp down high Covid infection rates, with more planning to close next week. Others are waiting to see if the Labor Day weekend will reduce the Covid rates on their campuses, according to Patricia Gunderson, Lassen County superintendent of schools.

This situation is the reverse of what happened last year, when most urban and suburban school campuses were closed and many rural schools remained opened for in-person instruction amid low Covid rates. This year, with Covid rates and teacher shortages worse in rural communities, these schools are struggling to stay open.

Complicating matters more is the requirement that quarantined students no longer have the option of distance learning. Instead, they are required to enroll in independent study, which comes with a list of requirements rural districts are having trouble meeting.

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High infection rates among school staff are keeping neighboring Diamond View Middle School from opening until Tuesday, according to an announcement from the Susanville School District. The school has about 330 students.

“With almost 50% of our staff affected and a severe shortage in available substitutes, we cannot open safely at this time,” it states.

In Lassen County, about 6% of its 3,800 students are being quarantined. The county has the highest Covid infection rates it has ever had and a 30% vaccination rate, Superintendent Gunderson said.

“Everybody is in the same boat and with contact tracing. It’s crazy,” Gunderson said. “We thought we were in pretty good shape to handle it because we handled it last year.”

Gunderson said district officials are pleading with families to keep students home if they are sick. Some students have returned to school with symptoms they attributed to allergies or to the smoke from wildfires, but later found out they were Covid-related.

Lambert's story also mentions school closures in Shasta, Tuolomne, and Tehama counties, and it acknowledges the disruption of the Dixie Fire on life in Lassen County. 

Earlier stories about rural schools in the era of COVID are here and here.  This recent Sacramento Bee story discusses the closure of a school in Sutter County, just north of Sacramento, because of a COVID outbreak.

Here's a recent Washington Post story contrasting rural and urban schools' handling of the pandemic.  The rural school is in Clarion, Pennsylvania, and the urban one is Alexandria, Virginia.  

Postscript:  Here's a September 16, 2021 Fresno Bee story by Ashleigh Panoo about a contentious meeting of the Yosemite School Board in Oakhurst, California.  Because some parents refused to wear masks at the regular Monday meeting, the meeting re-adjourned on Wednesday night in the football stadium.