It has been nearly nine months, since The Preuss School UC San Diego closed its doors and got into remote learning. Depending on how COVID-19 proceeds, whatever the county determines is best for students’ health, and what the state of California decides, will determine whether The Preuss School UCSD reopens for the second semester.

Many schools have already taken that step of reopening. Nearly 6.1 million k-12 students have returned physically to school. For example, Vista Unified school districts has let its schools reopen, although this has led to containing COVID-19 cases. Many of its students and staff members were forced to be quarantined due to the exposure of COVID-19. After this, several of the schools were forced to go back to remote learning.

“Rancho Minerva Middle School is now the fifth campus in the Vista Unified School District to close to students temporarily due to coronavirus cases involving students and staff,” Rafael Avitabile, NBC San Diego news reporter expressed, “Hundreds of students and dozens of students have been forced into quarantine as a result of exposure.” Students were exposed to COVID-19, forcing them to quarantine.

However many of the students have been making and attending big parties without taking any of the precautions recommended.

“In a letter to families Thursday, district leaders said two parties were confirmed to have occurred over the Halloween weekend involving some 200 students, primarily from Mission Vista High School and Vista High School,” Dillon Davis, a Fox 5 news reporter, expressed. “Students in attendance were not practicing social distancing and not all were wearing masks at the gathering, according to the district.”

The Preuss School wants to avoid these types of complications. So the Preuss’s staff team has been conducting discussions each week to figure out what would be the best for the students and staff safety. They have been observing what other schools have done, and based on what they have observed, they are trying to see if those same plans would work for Preuss. Although they have many concerns and ideas that still need to be planned out.

“A lot of it is still up in the air,” Mr. Kim, chemistry teacher, said. “We still have to develop many ideas and solutions.”

Although they still have ideas to figure out the staff members and the principal of The Preuss School UCSD Dr. Steitz, have managed to come to an agreement of making strict policies and changes in the school, to maintain everyone safe. Such as social distancing the students and implementing the use of face masks.

“If we reopen masks will be mandatory, students will be distanced in school, students will be going from two to three days per week to one to one learning, and the bussing will have the policy of having one person per every other seat,” Mr. Kim expressed.

Each school will have different policies and changes they will have to make, to keep everyone safe. The Preuss School has already been building a plan, but they are still not sure of what will proceed. Everything will depend on how COVID-19 increases or decreases during the next few months.

“A lot of it is still up in the air and many different announcements are given each week, so it is hard to know when the school will be able to reopen,” Mr. Kim stated.