BREAKING COVID PM NEWS: As enrollment numbers lag, Cabrillo College sets plans for fall in-person reopening

Quick Take:

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

The news of the day comes from Aptos where Cabrillo College abruptly changed course on its plan to continue on with distance learning in the fall.

In an area where all other educational institutions have planned for a return to the classroom (and largely did in some fashion this spring), Cabrillo’s decision left many students and parents scratching their heads.

As Lookout’s Nick Ibarra learned from Cabrillo president Matt Wetstein on Tuesday, the community college’s enrollment numbers for the fall of 2021 are lagging behind even last fall’s precipitous and record-breaking 18% falloff.

That would seem to indicate a strong student desire for the option of a campus return. Will Cabrillo’s change of course help lead to a turnaround? Have students who would’ve attended Cabrillo already made other choices? Are there faculty and staff who disagree with the wider reopening — or with the lag in formulating a “Plan B” in the first place?

Stay tuned. And tell us your thoughts if you have a dog — or are a dog — in the fight. news@lookoutlocal.com

To that headline and others we go…

As registration lags further behind, Cabrillo pivots to in-person

Proponents of a name change say Cabrillo College's namesake enslaved Indigenous people and should no longer be honored. — Proponents of a name change say Cabrillo College’s namesake enslaved Indigenous people and should no longer be honored. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

“There’s a lot of angst among faculty and counselors right now”: Cabrillo College is accelerating its path back to mostly in-person classes as registration numbers for the fall reveal an alarming trend — lagging even further behind than a year ago, when enrollment fell at an unprecedented rate. With the hope that more in-person courses could help bridge the gap — and following the suit of a wave of other schools — Cabrillo is changing course. Can it? Nick Ibarra poses that question here.

Pandemic? They kept right on climbing

Daniel Hutton, 13, reaches for a hold during a session at Agility Boulders in Capitola. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Agility Boulders embraced the COVID challenge, found footing in Capitola: The rope-free climbing discipline of bouldering has a Santa Cruz County foothold with the opening of Agility Boulders in Capitola, with owners John Hester and Shirley Yang weathering COVID’s challenges with the help of a welcoming community. Grace Stetson with more on Agility here.

More than half of Californians living in yellow tier

Santa Monica, CALIFORNIA—May 30, 2021--People flock to Santa Monica Pier and Santa Monica beach on Memorial Day, May 30, 2021. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) — People flock to the Santa Monica Pier and Santa Monica Beach on Memorial Day as coronavirus cases continued to tumble statewide. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Tears for the tier system: Five more counties — including San Diego — officially moved into California’s least restrictive category this week as part of the final update to the state’s color-coded COVID-19 reopening roadmap. Although reaching the yellow tier in the state’s blueprint allows businesses and other public spaces to operate more widely than they have in months, the state is gearing up to roll back virtually all coronavirus-related business restrictions next week as part of its long-awaited economic reopening. More from the Times here.

State Department eases its travel warnings on Mexico, Canada

A tourist stands beneath a mural in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. — A foreign visitor explores the Guadalupe neighborhood of Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende, which is popular with expats and tourists alike. Photo shot in 2019. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Reassessing ‘do not travel’: The U.S. State Department has loosened its travel warnings for dozens of nations, including Mexico, Canada, France and Germany, in a move that could ease airline restrictions for people wanting to go overseas as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in parts of the world. More from the Times here.

About the unused Johnson & Johnson doses

Piling up as FDA waits to see if shelf life can be extended: As vaccine expiration dates loom, states with hundreds of thousands of doses on hand say demand is tanking and there’s no easy way to donate to other states or countries that might want them. More from Kaiser Health News here.