Health and Safety Protocols

Staff members will be provided the appropriate PPE including face masks, face shields, and gloves. PPE will be provided to students upon request. Wiseburn will also provide desktop plexiglass shields and hand sanitizer stations.

• Prioritize a focus on social-emotional learning to provide support for students as they re-enter school; identify students in need of additional support and build a safe and inclusive classroom community.
• Provide lessons that discuss the impact of not being physically close, being able to read emotions or social cues with faces covered, and how to share thoughts and feelings so that others understand what is needed.
• Establish counseling support plans for crises related to infectious disease stress.
• Offer individual counseling, group counseling, and group education support to overcome anxiety and fear, and various other stresses.
• When a problem behavior is intensified, due to the stress of infectious diseases added to already existing psychological difficulties, provide counseling team support.
• Continue to identify students with social-emotional needs and offer counseling and therapeutic support.
• Provide routine communication (in-person or virtual) to staff members to encourage self-care and promote staff cohesion and coping skills.
• Provide staff with resources from their Employee Assistance Program (EASE).
• Frequently assess and evaluate supports that are currently in place to assist students with mental health issues, with support from school counselors, administration, and wellness center staff.

Per Los Angeles County Department of Public Health guidance, when a student, teacher, staff member, or a member of the household, tests positive for COVID-19 and has exposed others at the school, WUSD will implement the following steps:

• The COVID-19 Compliance Officer works with our school sites to determine who was a close contact to a confirmed case of COVID-19. Close contacts are asked about the status of their face covering on the date of exposure to a positive case, their vaccination status, and a prior positive test to determine quarantine status.
  • Students with an exposure are strongly recommended to test within 3-5 days after the last exposure date. The exception is students with a COVID-19 positive test in the past 90 days.
  • Students with an exposure are strongly recommended to wear a highly protective mask around others for 10 days after the last exposure date. Staff with an exposure continue to be required to wear a highly protective mask in the workplace around others for 10 days after the last exposure date.
• All students in the identified ‘exposed group’ may remain in school and participate in all school activities during the quarantine period provided they are asymptomatic and meet the requirements below:
  • Students in the group are strongly recommended to test once in the 10 days after the last exposure date, preferably between days 3 and 5 where possible. The exception is students who had a positive COVID-19 test in the past 90 days; these students are exempt from testing.
  • Students in the group, regardless of vaccination status or previous infection, are strongly recommended to remain fully masked indoors and outdoors, unless actively eating or drinking, when around others through day 10 after their last exposure date. Eating and drinking should happen distanced from others. 
• Students with COVID-19 who are released early from isolation are strongly recommended to wear a highly protective mask around others for 10 days after the positive test. Staff with COVID-19 who are released early from isolation continue to be required to wear a highly protective mask in the workplace around others for 10 days after the positive test.
• During the isolate at home period the school site will provide a plan for continuity of education, social services and meal program as needed, and establish alternate mechanisms to support student in quarantine.

Space Usage

• Continue to ensure physical distancing among staff in their work environment to reduce the spread of the virus by:
  • Limiting staff congregation in work environments, break rooms, staff rooms, and bathrooms.
  • Grouping staff together for training or staff development by conducting the training virtually or, if in-person, ensure distancing is maintained.
• Evaluate all workspaces to ensure that employees can maintain physical distancing to the extent possible.
• Rearrange workspaces to maximize the space between employees and students, whenever possible.
• Place desks with the maximum distance between students, according to physical distancing guidelines.

Creating and Providing Isolation Space

• Create an isolation area for triage for student illnesses or injuries.
• Use the isolation room to manage students with fever and respiratory symptoms.
• Any student exhibiting potential symptoms will wait to be picked up in a designated isolation space.
• Designate a staff member to monitor the space (i.e., health aide, secretary, or clerk).
• Disinfect space after usage.

• Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) strongly recommends that any activity that requires participants to remove their face masks only be done as a group if the activity is held outdoors.
• According to LACDPH, playing of wind instruments is permitted indoors in a group setting with the following safety measures strongly recommended:
  • It is strongly recommended that those playing wind instruments properly wear a modified face covering that allows for direct contact with the instrument mouthpiece whenever they are playing the instrument. During periods that the students are not actively practicing or performing, it is recommended they switch to full face coverings.
  • A minimum of 3 feet of physical distancing is strongly recommended between any individual playing a wind instrument and all other participants.
• Wiseburn will align with these recommendations in our music classes and will aim to hold music classes where masks must be removed outdoors, will strongly recommend modified face coverings for those playing wind instruments and will aim to provide 3 feet of physical distancing between students as possible.

General Practices

• Ensure that all staff members share responsibilities and respond in a consistent manner.
• Follow Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LADPH) protocols for notifying exposure of confirmed cases.
• Secure protective equipment to comply with California Department of Public Health (CDPH) guidance for students and staff, appropriate for each classification or duty; meet relevant California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) requirements; and have a plan for an ongoing supply of protective equipment.
• Secure enough thermal scan thermometers for health offices.
• Consider the differing requirements of PPE for the differing populations of students with disabilities.
• Frequently disinfect high traffic areas.
• Expeditiously disinfect space visited by suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19.
• Maintain cleaning supplies to continuously disinfect the school site per CDPH guidance.
• Ensure sufficient supplies of hand sanitizers, soap, hand-washing stations, tissues, no-touch trash cans, and paper towels.
• Follow established physical distancing protocols and sanitation protocols.

Adjustment Prioritizing Health and Safety

• Create markers to indicate the expected distance between students; especially in high-traffic areas.
• Limit educational activities with high student contact.
• Orient students with a new landscape of school and provide health education around minimizing germ spread, covering sneezes/coughs, washing hands, and physical distancing.
• Communicate that students may not bring items that are not easily disinfected.
• Inform students not to bring personal items from home, other than snacks/lunch, school assignments, devices, or items specifically required by the school.
• Inform staff, parents, and students to refrain from bringing disinfecting supplies into the classroom.
• Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
• Use hand sanitizer, at least 60 percent alcohol, if soap and water are unavailable (frequent handwashing is more effective than the use of hand sanitizers). Children under age nine should use hand sanitizer under adult supervision.
• Avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Increase the frequency of cleaning and disinfection protocol.
• Teach and remind students of hygiene practices necessary to ensure personal health and safety in school facilities and vehicles.
• Per CDPH and Cal/OSHA guidance, and consultation with local public health officials, provide opportunities for students and staff to meet handwashing frequency guidance and provide sufficient access to handwashing and sanitizer stations.
• Train staff and students on proper handwashing techniques and PPE.
• Advise staff and students to use paper towels (or single-use cloth towels) to dry hands thoroughly.
• Share hand washing protocol to wash hands when: arriving and leaving home; arriving at and leaving campus; after playing outside; after having close contact with others; after using shared surfaces or tools; before and after using the restroom; after blowing the nose, coughing, and sneezing; and before and after eating and preparing foods.
• Apply CDC guidance on proper PPE use by teaching staff and students to use tissues to wipe the nose, cough and sneeze inside a tissue, and not touch the face or face covering.

Vaccinated individuals do not have to quarantine after traveling out of state.  It is recommended that those who are unvaccinated get tested for COVID five days after return and/or quarantine for 7 days.  This is a recommendation and not a health order.  For more information, refer to cdc.gov: Domestic Travel During COVID-19

To notify Wiseburn of a possible or positive case of COVID-19, please immediately email your school site secretary and copy the WUSD COVID-19 Compliance Officer, Nisha Dugal (ndugal@wiseburn.org).

Juan de Anza Elementary School: Susan Castellanos (scastellanos@wiseburn.org)
138th Street School: Kristian Forte-Hill (kforte@wiseburn.org)
Juan Cabrillo Elementary School: Laura Nilsson (lnilsson@wiseburn.org)
Dana Middle School: Sheila Norman (snorman@wiseburn.org)

Lunch procedures will vary by school site and information will be provided by the site administrators.

The teachers will use Google Classroom and/or other online resources to provide the necessary material for students who miss in-person instruction due to quarantine or other issues that may come up.  More information on this will be provided by the site administrators and classroom teachers.

Good hand hygiene is an important element of virus mitigation. Handwashing will be incorporated into the daily routine and hand sanitizer will be strategically placed throughout the campuses.

The only students who would be restricted from school are those who are considered by LADPH to be close contacts to someone infected with COVID-19.  If a sibling is a close contact, the District will likely determine that the other sibling is also exposed to the virus.  Thus, both students would be required to stay home and will be provided the opportunity to access school work online.  If it is determined that only one of the siblings is a close contact then the District will not restrict the other sibling from attending school.

• Intensified cleaning, sanitation and ventilation will be put into effect at all schools and work locations.  
• High-touch items will be cleaned and sanitized daily.  
• Classroom and student work areas will be cleaned and sanitized when a new group of students will be using the location.
• School-approved Environmental Protection Agency-listed disinfectant products proven to eliminate the COVID-19 virus will be used.

Yes, students are able to walk to school or use a bike/scooter/skateboard and properly lock them up in the designated area.

Yes, you will be notified anytime there is a positive case on your student's school site campus. For more information, you may also reference the Wiseburn COVID-19 Dashboard page, which contains the active and total COVID-19 case numbers for the District.