Students returning to the St. Helena Unified School District next Wednesday will find full classrooms, a new principal, a new athletic director, and mandatory masking indoors â but not outdoors.
Requiring masks indoors only is consistent with updated guidelines issued in July by the California Department of Public Health, which recommended making outdoor mask-wearing optional. During the last school year, masks were required indoors and outdoors except when eating.
Superintendent Marylou Wilson said the district encourages staff and students 12 and over to get vaccinated as soon as possible, but it canât require vaccination.
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Parents who live outside the St. Helena Unified School District are criticizing a policy change that will reduce their kidsâ chances of attending the countyâs wealthiest and most prestigious school system.
The school board adopted an administrative recommendation last December to set a kindergarten enrollment cap for the upcoming school year at 40, which effectively eliminates the possibility of out-of-district kindergarteners attending St. Helena schools through the District of Choice program.
The policy change has especially drawn criticism from parents who already have one student in St. Helena schools and were counting on a younger sibling having the same opportunity.
But if youâre looking for all three in the same person, Cristian Maldonado fits the bill.
And by the way, heâs only 21.
Maldonado established Triniâs Catering in September 2019, inspired by the recipes his mother, Maria, mastered growing up in Jalisco as the oldest of six children.
She and her husband, Gilberto, immigrated to California and became naturalized U.S. citizens, but she never lost her knack for pumping out large quantities of authentic Mexican dishes.
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âVirtual or ghost restaurants are a super-popular phenomenon,â said Cristian Maldonado, who grew up in St. Helena and now lives in Calistoga. âI was able to start one a year prior to COVID hitting, and itâs been a good business model with low overhead.â
Most of St. Helenaâs first responders and teachers have chosen to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.
About 80% of the St. Helena Fire Department and 60% of the St. Helena Police Department had received at least their first dose of the vaccine as of Tuesday, according to Fire Chief John Sorensen and Police Chief Chris Hartley.
Most St. Helena Unified School District personnel will receive their vaccines on Friday afternoon at the St. Helena Hospital Foundationâs invitation-only vaccine clinic at the Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus.
About 50 school employees were vaccinated last Friday after Superintendent Marylou Wilson was notified the clinic had some doses left over toward the end of the day.