Santa Barbara City College to Start Fall Classes Fully Online

On Tuesday, July 29, Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) announced its revised plans for the fall 2020 semester, confirming that courses will be completely online. Previously, the institution had stated that while the vast majority of classes would switch to online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a small handful of courses would be a hybrid of online and face-to-face. 

However, in the face of a resurgence of COVID-19, the college has had to “reassess its plans,” according to Tuesday’s press release. 

“We have been in ongoing, regular communication with our Santa Barbara County Public Health department and have determined that it is highly unlikely that our County will be able to make the needed progress in order to allow for face-to-face instruction to resume on August 24th [the first day of fall semester],” wrote Utpal Goswami, the college’s president/superintendent. 

However, SBCC is still pursuing a “very limited” exemption for a small handful of classes that “support essential and critical infrastructure,” according to the release. SBCC will be working with the Public Health Department in the coming weeks to assess which programs may be eligible.