California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond released a statement Tuesday recommending that school campuses remain closed through the end of the 2019-20 school year as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads.

The statement follows:

“Due to the current safety concerns and needs for ongoing social distancing, it currently appears that our students will not be able to return to school campuses before the end of the school year.

“In order to allow schools to plan accordingly, and to ensure that learning still occurs until the end of the school year, we are suggesting that schools plan and prepare to have their curriculum carried out through a distance learning model.

“This is in no way to suggest that school is over for the year, but rather we should put all efforts into strengthening our delivery of education through distance learning.

“With that said, we are doing everything we can to support our schools and their distance learning opportunities for our students. We have been providing webinars, with one coming up this week to specifically focus on serving our students with disabilities in a distance learning model.

“We have guidance coming out this week to address the concerns of our seniors, and even our juniors, in regards to grading and graduation requirements.

“We also put out a survey to all districts in the state to determine their technology gaps and are now working to ensure that all students have access to devices and internet if they need it for their distance learning requirements.

“We are in unprecedented times, and it’s hard to tell what the future holds as we are all doing our best to flatten the curve. From what we know right now, our schools will be closed longer than we originally thought, and it will be best if our schools are prepared for that extension, by having their distance learning models prepared to go until the end of the school year.”