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Santa Rita Elementary School first graders work on an assignment as the Los Altos School District began reopening its campus on Oct. 12. Santa Clara County schools that have already reopened can remain open, despite the surge in coronavirus cases that that pushed the county into California’s most restrictive tier on Nov. 17. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Santa Clara County schools that have resumed in-person classes recently will be allowed to remain open despite the county moving this week to the state’s most-restrictive coronavirus pandemic reopening tier, a county spokesman said Wednesday.

Santa Clara County was one of 28 counties on Monday to move back into the purple tier of the state’s reopening system, which does not allow for in-person classes.

Since implementing the tier system in late summer, the state has required counties to be out of the purple tier for two consecutive weeks before they can resume in-person classes.

Those conditions will still apply to schools that have yet to reopen, according to county spokesman Ricardo Romero-Morales.

“Elementary schools, however, they can still submit their waivers to be open,” he said during a Wednesday, Nov. 18, briefing on the pandemic.

The tier change will also force multiple businesses and activities to pause, reduce their maximum capacity or operate fully outside, including indoor dining, indoor gyms and retail stores.

With Santa Clara County experiencing its third wave of COVID-19 cases, Romero-Morales said it is imperative that residents do not hold big gatherings for Thanksgiving and other upcoming holidays.

That includes traveling, even if someone is tested just before they’re scheduled to do so.

“Testing is not a ticket for you to travel, since we don’t know the people that you’re going to be interacting with at your destination,” he said. “In the timeframe that you get tested to the point that you receive your result, you might be in contact with other people that you don’t know their status.”

Romero-Morales cautioned residents not to give in to feeling like the pandemic is over as cases continue to rise within the county and the Bay Area in general.

“We know that we are all tired, we are experiencing pandemic fatigue where people are not as cautious as they were before,” he said. “However, this is the time to not let our guard down.”

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  1. Great for the students of Los Altos School District / especially too bad for the Economically Disadvantaged families * and their students in Mountain View Whisman SD.

    *(and “essential worker” families)

  2. Unfortunately, the question of opening of schools is very complicated. Opening of schools is a responsible step, which affects the safety of students. Although, frankly speaking, today’s distance learning also has a bad impact on students and their perception of the educational process. To help me in my studies I can use https://studyhippo.com/essay-importance-of-english-in-nursing-profession/ , on which I find an essay on the importance of English in the nursing profession. In the near future the school management faces a huge and complex task to improve the learning process.

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