Thurston County Health Officer urges schools to keep buildings closed this fall

Thurston County Health Officer Dr. Dimyana Abdelmalek has sent a letter to school district superintendents urging them to keep school buildings closed to in-person learning for the fall term and instead continue with online learning models that were implemented in the spring.

In the letter, Abdelmalek said that while schools provide vital services, the continuing rise in COVID-19 cases pose a real threat. “I do not believe we can open schools for in-person learning safely,” she wrote.

Already, North Thurston Public Schools — which had planned on reopening with a hybrid online and in-person model — has sent an email to parents explaining that online learning will be the only option at least the first quarter of the school year, from Sept. 9 to Nov. 13.

In a series of Zoom meetings, Olympia School District Superintendent Patrick Murphy said the district has been working with and listening to state local health officials regarding reopening. Since receiving Dr. Abdelmalek’s letter, Murphy and the district have made the decision to take classes completely online starting on September 9.

Murphy wrote on the district website: “We cannot predict how long students will remain in full-time distance learning. This will depend on infection rates, and we will continue to rely on guidance from health and education officials to advise us when it is safe to reopen schools.”

OSD had tentative plans to reopen schools in hybrid model, like North Thurston, and may well implement the model when school buildings are deemed safe to reopen, Murphy wrote.

Tumwater School Dsitrict has also decided to start the year completely online. District Superintendent Sean Dotson wrote in a letter posted on the district’s website that safety is the number one priority but education is obviously paramount.

To improve the quality of online education, Dotson wrote that “over the summer, our teachers have had opportunities for professional development to give them resources to improve curriculum delivery and instruction, and there will be more training in the coming weeks.”

In Dr. Abdelmaleks letter, she clarifies that small groups of five or fewer students can meet in person. By following safety guidelines, Dotson hopes to be able to provide in-person learning opportunities to vulnerable students in groups of no more than five.

Over the past month, COVID-19 cases have increased throughout the county. In her letter to superintendents, Abdelmalek said, “As of July 1, Thurston County had 273 confirmed cases. As of yesterday, July 29, 2020, the cumulative number of confirmed cases is 628 with a rate of 60.5 new cases per 100,000 people in our county over the past two weeks, or more than 100 cases per week.”

The influx of new cases has pushed Thurston County past Gov. Jay Inslee’s Safe Start Plan Phase 3 requirement of less than 25 new cases per 100,000 in two weeks. Thurston County would need less than 75 new cases reported over the course of two weeks. On the week of July 20-26, 93 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the county.

As the situation evolves, Thurston County Public Health and Social Services will continue working with school districts and “collaborating with other local health jurisdictions, as well as the Washington State Department of Health, on a unified approach to schools across the state,” wrote Abdelmalek in her letter, saying that further guidance may follow as a result of the collaboration.

This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 2:01 PM.