Officials say weekly testing will continue
By Sam Catanzaro
Culver City education officials this week lifted an indoor mask mandate for students.
On Friday, April 15, Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) Superintendent Quoc Tran announced the extension of an in-door mask mandate for an additional two weeks, until Monday, May 2.
“Due to the new highly transmissible variants that have been circulating since mid-March (Omicron Subvariants, BA.2.12 & BA.2.12.1), and the recent acceleration in COVID-19 cases nationally, in California, and in Los Angeles County, we have decided to extend the in-door mask mandate,” Tran said at the time. “This is out of an abundance of caution for the health and safety of our students, our staff, and our families.”
Other school districts in the area, including the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District and Beverly Hills Unified School District, lifted mask requirements for students last month.
On May 2, CCUSD lifted its indoor mask mandate after nine months of implementation. Indoor masking is now optional for CCUSD students.
“We are very mindful of the impact that COVID-19 is still having on our community. Therefore, we highly recommend that students and staff continue to wear masks to further protect themselves and others from COVID-19,” Tran said. “While we did have a slight surge in cases upon returning from spring break, the case rate within CCUSD is currently on the decline. But please remember that COVID-19 is still present, particularly the highly transmissible variants that have been circulating since mid-March (Omicron Subvariants, BA.2.12 & BA.2.12.1).”
According to Tran, CCUSD will continue weekly testing and “urge all eligible students and staff to get vaccinated if they aren’t already and to get boosted (and boosted again) as eligible.”
“We will continue to diligently monitor the caseload in our schools, in our community and in the county. Should the situation warrant a different course of action, we will inform the community immediately,” Tran said.
