December 31, 2021

 

Dear PVPUSD School Community,

 

School will resume on campus January 3rd , 2022, with the following provisions in place. Over the past several days, we have heard from many impassioned parents, employees and students regarding the manner in which school should resume in January. While opinions have differed, all stakeholders universally expressed the desire to provide the best educational experience for all students. This commonality cannot be understated…we share the same goal, and we are in this together! The health and safety of our students and staff are paramount, and thus we are implementing several safety measures to minimize Covid transmission at our schools, which will give us the best chance to avoid shutdowns due to large outbreaks.

 

If for any reason, your child will not attend school on January 3rd, please contact your school attendance office.

 

All students and staff are asked to take a Covid test this weekend. At-home tests, rapid tests and PCR tests are all acceptable as you are not required to provide the results. Testing is critically important to keeping Covid out of our schools and avoiding further disruption, especially following this winter break. Moreover, weekly Covid testing is strongly suggested.

 

To support testing efforts this weekend, PVPUSD is providing some additional testing resources:

• Sunday, January 2nd, Free In-Person Testing: The district will be offering free Covid testing* located at the District Warehouse (38 Crest Road West, Rolling Hills) from 8:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Staff will be checking for appointments upon entry to the road and directing vehicles to the district warehouse for the drive-thru test.

 

To make an in-person appointment, please click here. In-person testing also requires a sign- up and consent in Primary Health.

 

Links for students and staff to sign up can be found on our website at Covid-19 Testing.

 

• Sunday, January 2nd, Free Test Kit Pickup: The district will be offering free at-home Covid tests to current district students and staff only, to be picked up on Sunday, January 2nd at Miraleste Intermediate School (29323 Palos Verdes Dr. E. Rancho Palos Verdes) from 9am to 1pm. There is a limited supply, and the kits will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

For either the free in-person testing or the at-home test kit, families must show a current student ID or a screenshot or printout of the AERIES landing page with photo.

 

Employees will be required to have an ID or current paystub. We do not have the capacity to offer tests to non-PVPUSD community members and thus this policy ensures we can cover the needs of our students and staff.

 

We are expecting more test kits in the upcoming week, and they will be distributed through school sites to families.

 

*For In-Person testing, test results are guaranteed by 10 p.m. on Sunday, January 2nd . Any person with a positive test will be contacted personally by a PVPUSD staff member before the test results are sent through Primary Health. If you have already tested positive within the past 14 days, please do not test again. Consult your Primary Care Physician for further guidance.

 

Other testing options: • Families may schedule their own COVID testing at a variety of local medical providers including CVS, Walgreens, local urgent care facilities and pharmacies, and your personal health care provider. At 449 Silver Spur Road, a drive-through free PCR testing option is available Jan. 2 10-3, with results available 24-48 hours (may not work for families planning to return in person on Monday).

 

Another resource is https://covid19.lacounty.gov/testing/.

 

• At-home COVID tests are also available at local pharmacies and online.

 

• Families can order free tests from the county as well at covid19.lacounty.gov/hometest. These county test kits require swab collection to be mailed back for PCR test results, which may take a few days; thus they will work for future weeks but not for January 3.

 

• PVPUSD in-person testing sites will remain open through June 2022. Visit the district website for days and hours of operation and locations.

 

 

 

 • Our priority is to educate our students and minimize disruption. Staff and students will be the only people permitted on campus during school hours. This policy, while temporary, is intended to minimize the risk of Covid transmission at our schools.

 

 

• As has been done in the past, this policy may be relaxed when the rates of Covid transmission decrease. As stated above, our priority is to educate students and minimize disruption. Though inconvenient for some, masking on campus will assist with this priority.

 

Other policies will be guided by health orders from the LA County Department of Public Health and from the state.

 

Our families and staff all bear a personal responsibility during this latest COVID peak to follow campus rules.

 

While I am hopeful that school will continue in-person throughout the year, I am very concerned that the community spread will create staff shortages that will make it exceedingly difficult to provide in-person instruction. Our practices this fall of daily health screening and reporting positive Covid cases to principals remain in place to ensure accurate contact tracing.

 

Additionally, if your child is sick, please keep your child at home. While quarantine rules for positive cases currently remain the same for all individuals, students who are fully vaccinated will not need to quarantine if they are in close contact with a positive case if they remain asymptomatic. Although the CDC has updated its quarantine and isolation guidance, the California DPH and the LA County DPH have not yet made modifications, so, locally, all timelines remain the same as prior to winter break. I thank you for being understanding, flexible, kind to each other, and unified in our goal of providing the best experience for our students.