Laguna Beach Local News
An areal view of the Laguna Beach High School track, which will temporarily close for renovations. Photo by Cyrus Polk – Sparkle Films.
The Laguna Beach Unified School District remains on track to reopen secondary schools to in-person classes on March 17 even though earlier this week Orange County narrowly missed a metric needed to enter the less-restrictive red tier, the superintendent said Thursday.
In a statement to the region’s school district superintendents, Orange County Superintendent Al Mijares said he conferred with Orange County Health Officer Dr. Clayton Chau on Wednesday about the latest trends in COVID-19 cases. Chau confirmed that Orange County should enter the red tier on March 16, allowing K-12 districts to reopen the following day.
Laguna Beach Local News
Chantale McConnell is an instructional assistant at Top of the World Elementary. Photo courtesy of Chantale McConnell
Instructional Assistant Chantale McConnell rose to the challenge of guiding cohorts of up to 20 Kindergarten students through a very unusual year at Top of the World Elementary School.
She still sees little smiles underneath her students’ face masks as they sit behind plexiglass mounted on their desks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Inevitably, a student will break down and cry for their mom. McConnell is there to help make them feel happy at school.
“The one thing that’s hard for me, because I’m very involved physically with the kids, I’m a big hugger,” she said. “That’s been the hardest thing for me, not being able to hug.”