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March 10, 2020




To the MBUSD Community,

Since I wrote to you last week , the news of the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) around the world is dominating all of the headlines. The issue has the full attention of national, state, county, city, and local officials. I am in regular communication with our city, with the County Department of Health, with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, with the Manhattan Beach Fire Department and Police Department, and with other superintendents and health experts. To date locally, we have not been notified of any confirmed cases of the virus among our staff or our students, nor of any other case that would threaten our schools.

Because COVID-19 is an such a critical issue to our community, we have started posting daily entries and updates from the L.A. Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the L.A. County Office of Education, and the City of Manhattan Beach, which can be accessed by clicking the new button on the District homepage or simply click here . Please consult this for the most recent news.

One change we are making in our schedule is with our upcoming Open House events in elementary and middle school. We are implementing new procedures for disinfecting all high-touch areas in every classroom on a nightly basis. This procedure takes considerable time, and Open House will create a significant challenge in meeting this expectation, as it is a large scale evening event that brings large groups of people into every classroom space and delays cleaning activities until after the event is complete. As a result, this year we will be providing Open House in a virtual format. Elementary and middle school parents will be receiving information soon about how they can learn more about their child's classroom. We are very grateful to our teachers for their flexibility and creativity in working with us to make this change to our traditional format.
Following up on my newsletter to you on March 4, I am appreciative of our teachers' efforts to prepare a communication to parents, in the event of a school closure, on how they will communicate assignments, lessons, or other content (email/Google classroom/online platforms), how students will communicate with them every day, the hours they will be available for students, and any resources they can access from home. Our Educational Services Department is also preparing a list of resources for our teachers that they can use in case these contingency plans have to be put into place.

We will continue to post daily updates on our website, and I will communicate with you regularly as we move forward.
Mike Matthews, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Manhattan Beach Unified School District
325 S. Peck Avenue
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
(310)318-7345, x5900
[310-318-7345, x5902]  [[email protected]]  [www.mbusd.org]