Long Beach City College has yet to suspend its in-person courses, as administrators continue to monitor the rising coronavirus cases in Long Beach and Los Angeles County.
Courses that have been considered essential, and that are unable to translate to an online format, such as welding and nursing, have continued to operate on campus, with nearly 2,500 students enrolled in such courses.
Los Angeles County reported 5,031 new cases as of today, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom to announce a limited Stay at Home order for counties that are in the purple tier, which is considered widespread.
For the next month, any non-essential work or gatherings between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. will be prohibited, beginning this Saturday.
41 out of 58 counties in the state are now in the Purple Tier, which is considered to be widespread.
L.A. County has remained in the purple tier since the tier system was introduced in August.
Within the past week, California has experienced a spike in cases of 37%.
Vice President of Business Affairs at Long Beach City College, Marlene Drinkwine said that in the event that safety guidelines require the suspension of in-person courses, essential labs would be postponed, similarly to in March, when the original Stay at Home Order was given.
Students enrolled in those courses completed them over the summer.
“We’ve learned how incredibly creative and resourceful our faculty are, and that they’ve been able to develop several different approaches to labs to allow those courses that we’re not able to offer on campus, and will continue to really rely on their expertise, their creativity, understanding, of course, that there are some portions to those essential labs that have to be done in a safe environment on campus, and then those portions would be postponed to some future point when we would be allowed to resume,” Drinkwine said.
Drinkwine said that current plans to support the reopening of essential labs would be published shortly, however, they are a continuing process and will likely be so for a few months.
On Wednesday, El Camino College in Torrance announced that all in-person classes would be postponed until it has been deemed safe to return.
As for Long Beach City College, Drinkwine said she was hopeful that “we’ll be able to make it through the end of the semester. It’s a very fluid situation. I think that we are all dependent upon one another to adhere to the safety orders and to help slow the spread. And the more that we can do that as a community, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to continue to operate in a very limited fashion.”
Drinkwine said that the school has taken a rigorous approach to compliance with the current safety order.
“We have a lot of plan B’s … should we have to halt some on-campus activity.”
For students whose courses of study have been delayed or halted due to the pandemic, Drinkwine said that the school has utilized flexibility from the Chancellor’s office along with agencies that oversee the standards for certifications and the completion of various courses of studies.
Drinkwine said that she is hopeful that this flexibility will continue to be utilized.
“We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of hardship for all of our students, and that we as a district continue to try and find resources to help students with those challenges,” she said.
Regarding sports for the spring semester, Drinkwine said a decision has not yet been made, but discussions have been ongoing.
According to Drinkwine, the athletics team has been participating in statewide discussions and meetings about how to safely resume athletic activities.
“It’s been a challenge that some of the neighboring counties have allowed conditioning to proceed while ours has not,” she said.
“But we have a number of plans that the moment that we are allowed to resume some of those activities, how can we safely resume those activities and those plans are being aligned with all the different Athletic Association plans. So there’s a great interest in making sure that all of our students and staff can be safe and healthy but understanding the importance of athletics in the student’s academic careers and what we need to change with the circumstances right now in order to ensure safety for sport,” Drinkwine said.
Bringing back sports is reliant on public health orders, and the school would need guidance from public health officials pertaining to athletics, said Drinkwine.
As for in-person plans for the summer and fall semesters of next year, Drinkwine said that will be announced at least a few weeks in advance.
“We would take a look at how the progression of COVID-19 is, the progression of the vaccine, and of course, under the guidance of our public safety officials, public health officials,” Drinkwine said.
“I am truly thankful to all the faculty and staff and the students for their incredible responsibility. We’ve had everybody complying with the measures, it’s been a very smooth process. And that’s done through the work of support of an incredible team of faculty and staff supporting those students and so it’s been as successful as the process could have been considering circumstances,” Drinkwine said.