EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. — Monday marked the first day of school for students in the Rescue Union School District. It is one of only a few schools in Northern California allowing in-person learning.
They're allowed to do so because El Dorado County is not on the state watch list for having a high number of coronavirus cases.
Students were welcomed back to Lake Forest Elementary School in person as a message from the superintendent played over loudspeakers outside of school reminding students to social distance and wear their masks
"We were all just super excited to see each other," Emma Ainsworth, a student at Lake Forest Elementary School said.
Katie Ainsworth couldn't wait to bring her two kids back.
"The school has done an incredible job at laying everything out, safety and healthwise, so I'm very comfortable with them being here," Ainsworth said.
Parents were given the option to choose either a full distance learning model or a hybrid model where students will spend half of their day on campus doing in-person learning and the other half of their day learning from home.
The majority of the district's 2,700 students chose the hybrid model while 800 students are on the distance learning plan.
"They picked - regardless of what they had to do: wear a mask, socially distance, no playground whatsoever - they wanted to be back at school," she said.
Sarah Greule chose the hybrid option because both she and her husband work full time. Still, she has concerns about the possibility of positive exposures at school.
"That'd be my biggest concern is that as soon as school's over to just act like nothing is happening, and you're not social distancing and you're not masking, and then it's going to show up in our schools and we're back to distance learning anyways," Greule said.
The first day back also comes at a time when El Dorado County is experiencing rolling blackouts. The first one wiped out power to all of the schools at 5 p.m. on Aug. 14.
"Then all of a sudden, we thought, oh no, school starts next week!" Cheryl Olson, Superintendent of the Rescue Union School District said.
Olson says she doesn't expect to see any impacts during the school day because blackouts aren't scheduled to begin until 3 p.m., just as classes are wrapping up.
If they do happen earlier in the day, they're working on a plan to communicate assignments over the phone.
"They will reach out to the families via email because a lot of times the phones will still work and push out assignments and lesson plans and things that they can do without having to rely on technology," she said.
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