San Mateo County Community College District — home to Cañada College in Redwood City, College of San Mateo in San Mateo and Skyline College in San Bruno — will continue to hold courses online through the end of fall semester in December.

The district's governing board ratified the decision during a Wednesday, Feb. 24, meeting, according to a district press release.

"Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff," said district Chancellor Michael Claire in a statement. "Even though we all want to get back to our beautiful college campuses, we will do so in a thoughtful and deliberate way. We are optimistic that as vaccines become more widely distributed in the summer and fall we will be able to restore more in-person classes and services to students next year."

In-person instruction will continue for certain essential infrastructure sectors — health care, emergency services and transportation fields, as well as critical STEM labs in key transfer areas, and to meet licensing requirements for career education programs — to train first responders and health care workers to address urgent community needs, according to the district. Due to criteria set by the state that include social distancing, classroom and lab sanitization procedures and other health precautions, the number of people on campuses will be kept at a minimum.

The district is receiving $13.3 million in federal Higher Education Emergency Relief funding, the district said. Of that, almost two-thirds will be distributed to students to assist with financial challenges and the remainder will be used to offset costs incurred by the colleges for COVID-related expenses such as technology, health and safety equipment, and training.