The Club warmly welcomed back Redwood Christian Schools (RCS) Superintendent Al Hearne II, PhD for an update on how RCS is educating students during the pandemic. Superintendent Hearne started by thanking the Club for its $1,500 grant that help to provide hand sanitizer stations for RCS.
During his 10-minute presentation, Superintendent Hearne explained that students are being educated both on campus and via zoom with the following breakdowns (K-5 students at the Castro Valley campus - 70/30%; 6-8 students at the San Lorenzo campus - 41/59%; and high school - 5/95%).
Al described the decision-making process to be one of balancing Risk vs. Mitigation that involves both science and health guidelines. Watch the video to see the types of decisions and responses. In a survey of parents, 20% are Cautious (i.e., primarily work from home; follow every aspect of the CDC guidelines; and prefer to stay conservative about their re-assimilation plans); 60% are Confident (i.e., don’t wear a mask; spend greater amounts of time outside the home and don’t mind tight proximity; obey the law, but don’t worry about going the extra mile; lean towards re-assimilation now regardless of the news; some think the crisis may be blown out of proportion); and 20% are Cauti-denta (i.e., finding themselves feeling and doing a little bit of everything in the Cautious and Confident profiles). People move from category-to-category in the same day. Superintendent Hearne noted that it is practically impossible to please everyone with any decision that he makes.
RCS follows all the Alameda County Health Department guidelines for returning to school that have grown from 4-pages to 50-pages. The RCS procedures include a Daily Health Screener completed by the parents; Drop Off/Pick Up procedures using the PikMyKid app, which CVUSD is also using; and a Return to School Protocol. RCS has conducted 4960 screening with 85 individuals excluded for some time. There have been seven positive cases, but only three have been students. There have been no transmissions due to the procedures used.
Click here to watch Superintendent Hearne’s entire presentation with many insightful comments and data.