Wednesday evening’s Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education meeting was just the latest iteration of a nearly 11-month debate about how and when to reopen schools in the city, but after almost a year, vocal factions are still lobbying hard for what they see as the best route.

Over the summer, teachers and parents made emotional pleas to the board, begging them to get struggling students back in class. But anyone tuning into a board meeting for the first time last night would have gotten the impression that teachers and parents are in lockstep against the reopening of campuses.

Speakers who called in during public comment lambasted a planned March 1 reopening date as reckless and irresponsible.

One pointed out that the school board was still meeting virtually—safe at home—while debating whether to send students and teachers back to class.

Another speaker, Teachers Association of Long Beach president Christine Kelly, expressed particular frustration that the district was looking to reopen when only a fraction of its employees (10-15%) had received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We’ve had 750 teachers and classified staff working in person since July 1 and somehow the district hasn’t prioritized their vaccination,” she said. “Now that we have vaccines, having teachers return to in-person instruction without vaccinating them is unconscionable.”

Based on the state’s criteria for reopening campuses, it seems unrealistic for middle schools and high schools to reopen by next month, but the district has signaled to principals and staff at elementary schools that the March 1 date is very much still the plan for TK-5th grade students provided that COVID-19 numbers keep dropping after the recent winter surge.

To find out how many elementary school parents will send their students back to class, the district is running a survey and should know by early next week how many families plan to return to campus and how many will finish the school year virtually.

The LBUSD has asked only elementary school parents to fill out the online survey. Responses are supposed to be completed by Friday, but the district acknowledged at the board meeting that deadline may be extended to Tuesday of next week.

The district also said schools are prepared to take phone calls and to log answers in that way if any parents struggle to fill out the survey.

When the district asked parents to weigh in back in August, 58% of elementary and middle school parents and 67% of high school parents said they wanted some form of in-person learning. Much has changed in Long Beach and throughout Southern California since then, so it’s unclear if opinions have shifted.

LBUSD deputy superintendent Tiffany Brown stressed that no students were going to be forced back to school.

“A number of parents were concerned about a return to school, and that potential return is a family choice,” she said. “We will maintain a virtual choice that won’t be forced upon families.”

Given that the state has changed reopening requirements twice in the last two months, she also underlined that for elementary schools, the current standard for reopening is a local case rate dropping below 25 cases per 100,000 residents over a five day average. Locally, the adjusted case rate has dropped from 100 to 38 in the last few weeks, according to Brown.

“That is predicted by our local health officials to be declining still,” she said. “Never since schools closed in March has it been allowable for a school to reopen in Los Angeles County given these parameters. We are approaching a point where that will be a possibility; the question remains when will we reach it?”

For middle and high schools to reopen, the county will have to drop into the state’s “red tier”—which requires a case rate below 7 per 100,000—and stay there for five days under the current California Department of Public Health guidelines released in mid January.

Just like with the surrounding area, the number of COVID-19 cases tied to Long Beach schools has also declined recently.

There were a total of 78 positive cases in January—down from a record of 90 in December—on LBUSD campuses, which are currently serving roughly 1,600 students in person, with approximately 1,000 employees on campuses.

The number of positive tests in both students and outside vendors/visitors dropped to their lowest levels since October, with only five students and two visitors testing positive. The number of employees testing positive remained elevated, with 71 positive cases, down only three from December’s high of 74.

The overall decrease was roughly parallel to the recent drop citywide. The numbers were still more than three times as high as cases in September and four times as many cases as October.