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Superintendent's Weekly Update 4/30/21

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  Hello, I hope everyone had a good and relaxing week away. We are entering the home stretch of the school year and as you will see it will be a busy 7 weeks. I have a lot of information to share so thank you for taking the time to read this. New Updates: Guidance has been updated on close contacts. The new guidance calls for everyone within 6 feet of a COVID positive case to be notified but only individuals within 3 feet will need to quarantine. This went into effect this week. The Governor has also lifted the mask mandate for people who are vaccinated and outside. The Douglas Public Schools will still require everyone to wear a mask while on school grounds regardless if you have been vaccinated or not.  Pooled Testing: This week we had our first pool test flagged. We were able to identify an asymptomatic individual early on and have them quarantine. At this time we only have about 20% of our population testing weekly. This is a self administered nasal swab that takes under 10 seconds
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Superintendent's Weekly Update 4-16-21

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  Hello, This week students and staff enjoyed spirit week at each of our schools. Thank you to the schools and the staff members that helped to organize this week for students; it was fun. The high school also hosted the National Honor Society induction ceremony on Wednesday. It was great to have some normal activities in what has not been a normal 14 months. I am thrilled that we were able to do this for our kids as we are slowly returning to some semblance of normal for students.  As I have mentioned at various meetings throughout the year, we received grant funds from the Federal Government to help mitigate the impact of COVID in our schools. We were able to purchase PPE, technology and materials to get schools ready to open this year with the funds. We have earmarked a portion of the funding to create remediation programs this summer and next school year to address learning gaps. We will have a multi-week summer program that we will send out information on to students that qualify
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Superintendent's Weekly Update 4-9-21

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  Hello, It truly has been a wonderful week to have everyone back for full in person instruction. We have spent the majority of the year working towards this point and I am thrilled that we are able to get back for so many reasons. We must not let our guard down and I will highlight this again shortly in this newsletter and throughout the remainder of the year. We will continue to maintain a very high level of vigilance in order to stay safely open. Over the next few weeks I want to start discussing and sharing non COVID related topics with you. Thank you for your continued support and patience with this process.  Safety Precautions: These safety precautions have been in place all year and may very well still be in place next year. Please take a few minutes to review these with particular attention to numbers 7 and 8. Our ability to follow these have been one of the main factors to staying open this year.   Avoid large social gatherings Wear a mask Practice social distancing Wash your
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Superintendent's Weekly Update 3-26-21

  Hello, This has been a year of firsts and this week we had another first; the return to full in person teaching and learning for our K-5 students. We experienced the same first day of school kinks and glitches that we do every year in August and we are working through them. There was a palpable energy in each of these schools throughout the week. It was really great to see and feel it. I once again need to thank our faculty and staff, they, like all of us, have had to shift and pivot multiple times throughout the year. This last week is yet another example of that. It is not a small task to get a school ready to have double the population in attendance and they did an incredible job making this happen. Teachers made the switch seamlessly this week to full in person instruction. I want to thank them for all their efforts for making this happen, it was not easy but they did a masterful job making it all work. Up next will be our grade 6-12 students who return on April 5. Traffic Flow:
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Superintendent's Weekly Update 3/19/21

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  Hello, This was an exciting week here in the Douglas Public Schools as we prepared for the return of students on Monday. I do not want to sound like a broken record, but this could not have been done without a complete team effort. Again a huge thank you to everyone who made this all possible. I am looking forward to seeing students back in school full time and Ms. Socha and Mr. Bell have a few small surprises in store for everyone on Monday. Next week we will shift our focus to prepare our Middle and High Schools for a return on April 5. Social and Emotional Concerns: As we have prepared for our safe return to school we have made certain to put together a comprehensive and well thought out plan to ensure everyone and everything is safe and ready. I would like to highlight some of what we have done to make certain our students feel safe coming back. As we know, students are always nervous and anxious returning to school after summer vacation and a long break. Although we have been ba
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