St. Cornelius Catholic School in East Long Beach was granted a waiver to reopen for limited in-person learning Monday afternoon, making it the sixth private school in the city to gain permission for K-2nd students to come back on campus.

St. Cornelius joins St. Joseph, Maple Village Waldorf, Los Altos Brethren/Los Altos Grace, Bethany Lutheran and St. Maria Goretti as schools with permission to reopen those lower grades with strict coronavirus protocols. St. Cornelius is the second-largest school to receive a waiver from the city’s health department, with 76 students preparing to come back on campus.

In all, the six schools serve 421 students, and almost all of them are located in the city’s eastern—more suburban—side. Maple Village Waldorf (Sixth Street and Termino Avenue) is the only school not in East Long Beach or Lakewood Village.

The locations of the six private schools that have been granted waivers to reopen some in-person classes in Long Beach. Screenshot from Google Maps.

The Long Beach Unified School District, which serves 70,000 students in the city, has not applied for a waiver to reopen its kindergarten through second-grade classrooms, saying the process is too difficult. The district’s current plan is to return to in-person classes, across all grades, no sooner than Jan. 28.

As with the other schools that have reopened, things will look different at St. Cornelius, where students will remain in smaller cohorts and stay socially distanced throughout the day. The school’s application to return includes signatures from all 25 employees of the school as well as a representative parent group.

The school’s eight-page reopening plan can be read here.

Here’s what classes look like at the first Long Beach school to get a reopening waiver