March 3, 2022
Dear LGSUHSD Families,
On Monday, February 28th, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced that the statewide school masking mandate will be lifted. The announcement included the following key points:
- The statewide indoor mask mandate for schools will expire for all students and staff, regardless of vaccination status, at the end of the day on Friday, March 11.
- Monday, March 14th, will be the first school day with no state mask requirement.
- County public health officers and local school districts may still impose more stringent rules.
The administration cited encouraging trends that include low pediatric hospitalizations as part of the metric for the masking change, as well as the effectiveness of isolation and quarantining to diminish school and community spread of COVID-19. Thanks to our collective efforts to prevent the spread of COVID and to protect the most vulnerable, our school-based PCR testing has shown a COVID positivity rate of less than 1% over the last five weeks.
Since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, LGSUHSD has emphasized our intent to follow CDPH Guidelines in determining safety measures for our schools. This approach has helped to ensure that our campuses are open for in-person learning for our students and we plan to continue that approach by adopting the new CDPH recommendations for masking in schools. Effective Monday, March 14th, the use of masks while indoors at our schools will be strongly recommended, but optional for students and staff.
As Superintendent, my top priority is the health and safety of our students. While we have all learned the hard way over the last two years that health conditions can change rapidly, I am pleased that we are now able to transition into the next stage of our response to this pandemic. Thank you to all of our staff for their herculean effort keeping our students safe and supported and thank you for your continuing support of our schools and our students.
Sincerely,
Dr. Michael Grove, Superintendent
For the full message, including Q & A, please click here.