Ten of 28 Orange County school districts will have teachers and students back in classrooms this week, using a hybrid model of in-person and online learning. The county is currently in tier two of California’s COVID-19 reopening plan, which means that some businesses can allow people indoors with social distancing measures in place.
Gustavo Arellano, on KCRW’s “Orange County Line,” says many reopening schools are in the more affluent areas of the OC. He says some of these schools are opening sooner because conservative politicians — on the school board level and the city level — stated that COVID-19 isn’t hitting OC as hard as LA.
Some teachers, however, feel that schools are opening up too fast and are concerned about a lack of safety measures in place. Arellano adds that the Orange County Health Department is leaving it up to individual school districts to decide whether to notify families and the community of any Covid-19 outbreaks at schools. That has some parents and teachers concerned about transparency should an outbreak occur.
And in spite of the pandemic, the annual Tortilla Tournament is happening online this year. Arellano says, “Even in the time of the coronavirus, we need tortillas.” The competition has already begun with flour, corn, and hybrid tortillas going up against each other in the “Masa Madness” to crown the best tortilla of the year.