STORY BY CEDRIC CHAN AND TOMOKI CHIEN

New national guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today recommends that Santa Clara County schools open for full in-person instruction, although state restrictions would prohibit that from happening until hitting the red tier of coronavirus transmission.

The centerpiece of the CDC’s guidance is a colored tier system — which is separate from California’s criteria — that provides recommendations for school reopenings according to cases rates in the surrounding community.

At the moment, Santa Clara County sits in the yellow tier of the CDC’s system with 21.7 new cases per day for every 100,000 in the population as well as a 4% test positivity rate.

The CDC recommends that schools in both the yellow and blue tiers open for full in-person instruction alongside sports and extracurricular activities; notably, guidance in those tiers suggests 6-foot social distancing “to the greatest extent possible,” as opposed to the “required” social distancing of the orange and red tiers. 

In all returns, the CDC recommends prioritizing in-person learning over extracurricular activities, including sports, citing social, emotional and mental health impacts.

California restrictions, however, prevent schools that had not offered in-person instruction for a full grade level prior to entering the purple tier in November from reopening until falling to the state’s red tier; that includes the Mountain View–Los Altos School District and Palo Alto Unified School District secondary schools, which both have plans to return in the red tier, although not for “full in-person instruction” as the CDC suggests.

Currently, Santa Clara County sits in the purple tier of the state’s system, needing to fall from 21.7 to 7 new daily cases per 100,000 in the population to qualify for the red tier.