SAN MARINO, Calif. — As parents line up to get their kids outside a San Marino elementary school, one thing looms on their minds – Coronavirus or COVID-19.

“I think we’re all concerned, it think it’s going to do what it’s going to do and the result will be sort of inevitable,” said David Wang, who has a third and a sixth grader in the San Marino School District.

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

He says the district has been proactive about keeping parents informed.

“They’ve been handling it pretty well, they sent out pretty frequent updates from the district as far as the measures they’re taking and how the crisis is spreading," Wang said. "And so, we’ve been pretty happy with the communication.” 

The communication is primarily coming from Amber Nuuvali, the new spokesperson for the district.

“For the past month now we’ve sent a weekly communication with our community through our list serve and then we include the updates on our website too for continued accessibility,” said Nuuvali.

The updates are also being sent out in Mandarin, because about half of the 2,900 children that attend San Marino schools are of Asian descent.

“Mainly Chinese, and so we want to make sure that all of our community is able to access this important information,” said Nuuvali.

The information has also been posted all around the school, from bulletin boards to waiting areas. 

According to Nuuvali, they have about five health professionals on-site on any given day, more than the number recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services. By contrast, LAUSD has about half the number of nurses recommended by DHHS.

We reached out to LAUSD to get information from them on this topic, but they sent us an email saying "no comment."

San Marino District Officials are also meeting with department heads almost daily, and are working with the L.A. County Office of Education and the Department of Public Health to figure out what the procedures would be, if schools were to close due to the virus. 

“We’re definitely going to do all that we can though to make sure our students can continue to learn and whether in the classroom or elsewhere we are actively looking at our options in case we need to implement something like that,” said Nuuvali when we asked her about teleschooling. 

But for now, kids and parents are focusing on what they can control.

“We’re just making sure we continue to wash hands and just executing good hygiene and what not,” said Wang.

The good news here they say, it’s a tight-knit community, they haven’t felt any tension or discrimination and will continue to support each other.