Dear Community and Staff:

Governor Newsom and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced today that after March 11, 2022, masks will no longer be required but will be strongly recommended in California schools. Staff and students may attend without a mask starting March 14, 2022 and are also welcome to continue wearing a mask if they so choose. 

Until then, all students and staff in California are required to wear masks indoors in order for districts to remain in compliance with state and CDPH requirements.  We are asking for community support and patience as we move to the next stage of returning to normal.

We will continue to update everyone as we move forward together as a community.  

Benicia Unified School District

Dear BUSD Families and Staff, 

We hope you had a restful and relaxing weekend. We are in the home stretch of this school year and we want to continue to have academic and social  emotional learning as our focus.

We are pleased to see the rapid drop in COVID-19 cases over the past few  weeks. As you may know, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  recently adjusted its guidance allowing flexibility in mask wearing in most public  situations, including schools.  However, right now, it is uncertain what impact this has on California.

We are eagerly awaiting new guidance from the Governor and the California  Department of Public Health (CDPH). An announcement is scheduled for  tomorrow, Monday, February 28th, that will include information about mask requirements in  all PK-12 schools. Hopefully, this guidance will allow for more flexibility for school  districts. The CDPH still requires all students and staff to be masked while indoors  on school campuses. Please remember that BUSD administrators and staff do not make these  decisions.

We understand that some of our students and families are frustrated with the  length of time masks have been required on campus.  Your patience and cooperation is appreciated as we learn the new  requirements, understand how they apply to our schools, and quickly  communicate the changes and requirements with families.

We want our children to remain in class, with their teachers, learning every day.  We are all very excited to continue to move toward a more normal  school environment with great end of the year activities. 

Thank you for your continued patience and cooperation.

Sincerely, 
Benicia Unified School District

Dear Families,

We appreciate all of your efforts to keep our staff and students safe and schools open. We wanted to take this moment to provide you with updates regarding measures we have implemented in order to navigate this COVID spike with the onset of Omicron. 

Our Human Resources department has hired 27 additional substitute teaching staff during the 2021-22 school year.  This strategy has worked well as we have had enough substitutes and other staff to cover any vacancies we have had in classrooms. 

We added an additional testing day for staff and extended the hours of our Friday testing clinic.  We realize these slots have filled up very quickly and that we have a need for more.  At this time, however, the company we are contracting with cannot commit to additional testing clinics in BUSD. When we have multiple positive cases in one classroom, we will work to provide on site testing for those classes. Parents will need to sign a consent through a link that will be sent through Parent Square if this is needed.  We are also linking alternate testing sites here for your convenience: Solano County – COVID-19 Vaccines.  

Before winter break, we sent home the testing kits that were allotted to BUSD for all staff and students. This strategy was extremely effective in limiting positive cases upon the return to school on January 6, 2022.  We have provided N95 or KN95 masks to all staff who want them and will continue to do so.  It is vitally important that students continue to wear a snug fitting mask that securely fits over the nose and mouth.  Medical masks are more effective than cloth masks, and properly fitted N-95 or KN95 masks are more effective than medical masks. Students may also choose to wear a cloth mask over a medical mask to help with the seal.

 We understand that some may be wondering if we are going to close schools.  Please know BUSD plans to keep our schools open and will do everything we can in that regard, doing so in a manner that follows CDPH guidelines.  The law that allowed for distance learning ended last school year and does not allow for that option this year unless a situation presented itself where insufficient staff were available to run schools and all options were fully exhausted.   

As a follow-up to the communication we sent out Monday, please see the charts below with a detailed explanation of the new CDPH guidelines as they related to the quarantine protocols.

As always, we appreciate your partnership in keeping our schools open and staff and students healthy.  

Sincerely,  

Charles F. Young, Ed.D.

Superintendent 

Dear Benicia Families,

Students and staff health and safety are our top priority.  BUSD is following the updates below from CDPH as it pertains to quarantine due to COVID-19.  Please note the following changes in relation to the quarantine duration for positive cases of COVID-19.
Students who test positive for COVID-19 need to quarantine for five (5) days.

• Students can take an antigen test on day 5.  If that test is negative and they are asymptomatic, they can return to school on day six.
• If symptomatic or they test positive on the Antigen test, then they need to quarantine for ten (10) days or until the symptoms are gone.

Thank you for your continued partnership in helping to keep our students safe and schools open.

Sincerely,
Leslie Beatson, Ed.D.
Assistant Superintendent

Teri Deane BSN, RN, PHN
Assistant Director of Health Services