Beverly Hills Schools Rethink Fall Options

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is,” goes the old saying, and in 2020 that seems to be truer than ever.

On June 22, the Beverly Hills Unified School District announced that it would be offering two options for the fall: a hybrid option that would divide students into two cohorts that would physically be in school every other week, and an all-virtual Independent Learning Center.

But on Thursday, district Superintendent Dr. Michael Bregy sent another email announcing that that plan was no longer certain. Bregy said that when the hybrid plan was devised, coronavirus trends in LA County were “significantly different than today,” ; the district anticipated more applications to its all-virtual curriculum, and new LA County guidelines have made it more difficult to accommodate students.

The updated guidelines require six feet distancing between everyone, and the school has recently learned that that would mean 10-12 students could fit in each classroom, when there are normally an average of about 25. That, combined with lower than anticipated ILC applications, would mean that students from grades 4-12 would need to be divided into three different cohorts, instead of the two planned.

This would mean that the each student would only spend about 27.3 days physically at school in the first semester of the year.

Finally, public health mandates that if a single person is diagnosed with COVID-19, everyone they come into contact with will need to self-quarantine for 14 days, which would likely prove disruptive.

So what now? That is yet to be determined.

“I want to be clear in communicating that we are working diligently on all possibilities and no formal decisions have been made,” Bregy wrote. “The Board Study Session offered direction and we are now exploring that guidance while also understanding that we must comply with state and local officials and any new orders that are announced.”

District spokesperson Rebecca Starkins said that the district is working with public health experts to devise contingency plans for all options, including the originally-planned hybrid model. Starkins also noted that the district is exploring the idea of teachers teaching students from the school, which will give them access to valuable technology and teaching tools. Starkins said that during the past spring, teachers taught from their homes, an “emergency stopgap at the time.”

Despite all the uncertainty, Starkins is confident that a well-executed plan will be in place by the time school begins on Aug. 17.

“We are cognizant that things are changing rapidly and are taking into consideration teacher input, parent feedback and administration suggestions,” she wrote in an email. “The health and safety of our community will always be our first priority. We are confident that we will have clarity in the coming weeks about a direction our district will go in.”