Palisades Businesses, Schools Respond to Updated Orders

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced updated COVID-19 business and school operations on Wednesday, September 2.

The county will allow limited on-campus operation for schools, as well as indoor operations for hair salons and barbershops.

Starting Monday, September 14, schools will be allowed to offer in-school services for small cohorts of students with individualized education plans, students who require instruction for English as a second language, and students who need assessment or specialized in-school services, so long as the school is able to implement student safety and infection control protocols.

All other K-12 schools in California counties that are in Tier 1 of the State’s Framework for Recovery, including LA County, are prohibited from reopening for in-person instruction. Tier 1 means that there continues to be widespread transmission of the virus in the county.

Principal of Corpus Christi School Suzanne Stewart Duffy shared the school’s current plan with the Palisadian-Post. 

“Our timeline to return to site-based learning is based on when the County of Los Angeles opens the waiver process or is taken off the ‘watch list,’ whichever happens first,” Duffy said. “We plan to file for a waiver as soon as the County of Los Angeles begins accepting them. Our teachers are teaching from their classrooms on campus.”

Corpus Christi School began its 2020-21 academic year virtually for all grades TK through eight on Tuesday, September 8.

Calvary Christian School also kicked off its academic school year on September 8, previously announcing plans to resume in-person instruction so long as the campus was permitted to do so. For the time being, elementary and middle school students will be learning online, while preschool students meet in-person.

Seven Arrows Elementary School Director of Strategic Marketing and Enrollment Management Fiona Farrahi shared that the school had a soft reopening this past week “devoted to student wellness and their social-emotional needs,” she said.

Parents and students had the chance to attend conferences via Zoom or in-person outdoors to meet one another. Distance learning begins for students on Monday, September 14.

Public Health announced that hair salons and barbershops can reopen for indoor services at 25% occupancy, so long as they are in compliance with protocols, effective immediately. The order encourages businesses to continue outdoor operations when possible, and to offer indoor operations only for services that cannot be provided outdoors.

Palisades Barber Shop, located at 15322 Antioch St., has recently returned its operations indoors, owner Joe Almaraz said to the Post.

“We’re not back to normal, but we are open,” Almaraz said.

All other current restrictions remain unchanged at this time, according to the press release from Public Health.

“Right now, a cautious and titrated reopening—with close monitoring of what happens to our data in the weeks to follow—is needed to ensure we are not experiencing significant spikes in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as we saw in July after reopenings and holidays,” LA County Director of Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “As we slowly reopen sectors, we will watch closely how it is impacting community transmission.”

The number of positive cases in Pacific Palisades reached 117, with 23 additional in Palisades Highlands, as the Post went to print. In LA County, excluding Long Beach and Pasadena, there have been 235,874 positive cases, with 5,692 deaths.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story reported that nail salons had reopened for indoor services. Nail salons remain open for outdoor services when available, but not indoor at this time.