The reopening of in-person classroom instruction within the Manhattan Beach Unified School District and all area schools has been suspended due to the surge in COVID-19 cases occurring throughout Los Angeles County. Superintendent Mike Matthews issued an unusual Sunday night message to the MBUSD parent community announcing the change in plans. The school board had held a special meeting on December 31 in which the date for reopening was moved from January 5 to January 13. “Since then, two of our elementary-aged child care cohorts are not in school due to two cases of COVID in those classrooms,” Matthews wrote in his Sunday night message. “And while there is no evidence of spread so far, which has been the case in all of our classrooms, these two incidents bring our case total to 34 since we returned to campus on September 16, 2020. That’s a big number, and it reflects the number of cases in our community.” Matthews said that Los Angeles County Department of Public Health director Barbara Ferrer last week recommended that schools that are open suspend in-person services until February 1.