As California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed a proposal to incentivize school reopenings this month using grants, he has faced opposition from teachers’ unions, as well as some legislators and district leaders. But Orange County school districts have been more receptive to hybrid- and in-person-learning than those in some neighboring counties. On the state’s map showing the status of school closures, districts open for in-person or hybrid learning are colored blue. Districts with distance-learning only are a sandy yellow. Orange County looks like something of a watering hole in the desert, surrounded by sandy-colored Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. It does have a sandy patch of its own, covering Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Westminster, Stanton, and Anaheim. Schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Orange County have been opened for hybrid-learning since September (aside from a few weeks in January when students in grades 7–12 were kept home). “Getting them back here on campus has made such a difference, and how thrilled the kids are to be able to be around one another,” Kristin DeMicco, principal of Lincoln Elementary School in the Newport-Mesa district, told The Epoch Times. She spoke …