Dear Tiger Community,
Thinking back on this past week’s five-day “pause,” I’m filled with pride with how we all responded. We know it’s not easy to bring learning from our classrooms onto your dining room table. And we thank you, caregivers, for the support, patience, and love you have shown your students during this difficult time.
We had a number of goals we wanted to accomplish with our pause. We heard loud and clear this summer that safety was a top priority when we reopened. So first and foremost, we closed our buildings to stop any further spread of the virus related to this in-school case. Next, it’s our partners at Washington County Public Health and Public Safety who run our tracking and tracing efforts. This part of the work takes some days and we’re grateful for their thorough efforts. We also wanted to clean our district top to bottom. And in the midst of this, we were able to send Chromebooks home and pivot to remote learning.
Together we achieved these goals in three school days.
We remain committed to using a Pause should there be another confirmed in-school case of Covid. Safety will always be priority #1. And while we remain committed to offering a fully virtual learning option, we believe that in-person instruction is the best learning option. With these things in mind, should we need another pause, we are committed to a three-day pause. A three-day Pause will:
- Keep everyone as safe as possible,
- Provide time for extensive cleaning,
- Provide our county partners with time to track and trace,
- And get our students back in-person two days sooner.
Of course, should we not be able to guarantee our students’ and staff’s safety, we would notify you of any need to extend the Pause. The recent case connected to our Kindergarten Center is a good example of this in action.
We are reimagining and rebooting our schools in a unique year. So as a learning organization, we want to reflect and improve. We’ll continue to make adjustments to keep our school community safe and to keep our students learning.
Thank you for your continued partnership,
Jon Hunter, Interim Superintendent