In a dramatic turnaround after weeks of community protests, Novato Unified School District officials said they are abandoning plans to close an elementary school in the near future. Superintendent Kris Cosca, addressing the board of trustees on Tuesday, said the district “should take a pause.”. “I believe our No. 1 priority needs to be the safe and full reopening of our schools in the 2021-22 school year and the enrollment of new and returning students into our system,” Cosca said.

The Branson School in Ross will suspend in-person learning starting Tuesday after receiving reports of students attending several large public Halloween gatherings. Chris Mazzola, the academy’s top administrator, said that over the weekend the school learned of two parties in San Francisco and one in Marin.

Branson School in Ross will run a pilot test next month of a new contact tracing app designed to allow high schools to have a safer return to campus after many months of distance learning. About 15 faculty members and 50 students will test MarinTrace, a cellphone and website app created by Branson senior Amrit Baveja and Beck Lorsch, a senior at Marin Academy in San Rafael.

Marin’s outdoor classrooms could be some of the safest places for kids to learn during the coronavirus pandemic thanks to their open air and natural sunlight, some educators say. They could also be a key for enhancing academics by calming a child’s brain

Alkus-Barrow said she and fellow pod members are exploring independent homeschooling curricula. Her daughter has suffered isolation from the loss of school friends. Although a pod is only a small group compared to a full classroom, it’s a good compromise, she said.

Scores of Marin County teachers staged a car caravan and rally Thursday to demand stronger protections for reopening schools as the coronavirus continues to spread. “We can’t have guidelines that ignore the conditions on the ground,” Morgan Agnew, president of the San Rafael Federation of Teachers, said before more than 150 teachers and supporters gathered in front of the Marin County Office of Education building in Terra Linda.

Marin County public health and education officials announced Wednesday that TK-12 schools in Marin should plan to delay the start of in-person classroom instruction at least until after Labor Day. The new guidelines, which call for a phased-in approach starting with remote instruction and small in-person groups in August, are to give school staff and students more time for health and safety orientations to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Marin parents and teachers, bewildered by what they say are changing guidelines and conflicting information, are demanding more clout about how schools will reopen safely next month amid the coronavirus pandemic. “This is a big experiment,” said Tim Lentini, a math teacher at Kent Middle School in Kentfield.

San Domenico School is evicting three nuns from their longtime convent so it can be available as a potential coronavirus infirmary. The private academy in San Anselmo, which enrolls about 680 students, expects 130 regional and international boarding students in the fall who might not have any suitable place to isolate otherwise, said Cecily Stock, the school’s top administrator.

A new state budget agreement offers more money to Marin and California schools than was projected, but requires students return to in-classroom learning — except for specific coronavirus-related triggers. The details, contained in a budget trailer bill released late Monday night, reinforce Marin County’s plan announced last week to return to full five-day in-classroom instruction when the fall term starts in late August.

Despite plans for strict virus safeguards, some Marin teachers and parents are pushing back on recommendations aimed at reopening schools this fall. “I am concerned about reopening so quickly and drastically,” said John Peregoy, a teacher in the Miller Creek School District, in an email. “The Marin County school guidelines will be ineffective, and they do not take into account that it will be nearly impossible to keep kids at a 6-foot distance from each other and wearing a facial covering properly — especially the younger ones — while still focusing on their education.

Marin’s public, private, independent and parochial schools are now being guided to plan for a full reopening of in-person classroom instruction in the fall. “We’ve been working on this since the day that schools first closed on March 16,” Mary Jane Burke, Marin County superintendent of schools said.

Some Marin preschools are testing coronavirus safeguards as the new summer season opens. “Our No. 1 goal is to keep the coronavirus out of our preschool,” said David Allen-Hughes, director of the Ross Preschool. “Nobody knows what’s going to make the difference, but we’re pulling out all the stops.”.

The state released guidelines Monday on ways to avoid the spread of the coronavirus when schools reopen in the fall. “The effects felt by COVID-19 have been widespread and created impacts unlike anything that we’ve ever seen,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said in a statewide online forum.

While demonstrations around Marin County are putting renewed focus on social injustice, an educational equity program in Marin City is under financial stress. The Freedom School, an annual event for the past decade, is at risk of being about $50,000 in the red from coronavirus-related fundraising setbacks.

When Erik Stenberg, an English teacher at Terra Linda High School, died unexpectedly in August 2018, he left behind a world of grieving students, families, colleagues and friends. One of the most shaken was Romisa Shakeriniasar, a student in Stenberg’s AVID — or Advancement Via Individual Determination — class for two years.