Superintendent's Weekly Update 9/11/2020

Newsletter Highlights Include:

DESE welcome back letter

Nurse’s Information and Guidance

Class Lists

Bus Routes

Tracking Data


Hello,


After 4488 hours,187 days, and 26.7 weeks I am thrilled to welcome students back to school next week. It has been a long journey to get to this point and all of us are excited to open our doors to students. The first day of school is always filled with a myriad of emotions: excitement, nervousness, anticipation, uncertainty, joy, and rejuvenation. These feelings are magnified this year as we are returning to a new normal and a new model of education. As I have said over the past 10 weeks, thank you for your patience with us. Please know that we want things to be perfect for students and teachers for their return; if there are issues, let us know and we will address them. I have asked principals to continue meeting with families on a weekly basis and I have also asked for them to hold voluntary faculty meetings every day after school with staff to answer questions and troubleshoot issues. 


As is expected the first week of school will look different for both students and teachers this year. My expectations for these first few days will be for students and staff to build relationships, create a classroom community, ensure students feel safe, set a strong foundation to build upon, discuss routines and procedures regarding PPE and safety, log onto Zoom and Google Classroom, and review start of the year packets and information. After being away from school for 6 months, we need to do this before we can dive into the curriculum.


The Commissioner of Education has shared a welcome back to school letter with families. Please take a few minutes to look it over at your leisure. http://www.doe.mass.edu/commissioner/back-to-school/


Our nurses have done a great job in putting together a back to school informational sheet for families. It covers topics such as: what to do if a student is not feeling well in the morning, tips for when to get tested, masks, immunizations and vaccines. This is also on the website and will come home in a packet next week.


Class lists have been sent out. Please refer to iPass for more information. If you do not see this information, I ask that you contact the schools. 


Bus routes have been posted on the website and a letter and bus pass was mailed out to parents on Wednesday who had requested transportation and who are eligible. If you have not received the letter and bus pass by Saturday to please contact the school on Monday to let them know. As a reminder we had some new challenges this year with bussing. Per DESE regulations we are only allowed one student per seat on the bus. These will be assigned and designated seats for students for the year. Additionally in order to maximize space we only allowed one stop per family. We have received a few emails for clarification and we have been working on those with Tellstone.


Tracking Data: I would like to share a few data points that I track on a daily and weekly basis to determine the safety of staying in school. These are just a few data points that DESE and the State have recommended for schools to track. 


  1. State Positivity Rating: The recommendation is for schools to stay open if the positivity rating is under 5%. The positivity rating is calculated as follows: dividing total tests in a day by daily positive results. The Massachusetts Department of Public reports out a weighted 7 day average on a daily basis on their website. As of September 10 the State is at a .08% rating. 

  2. Community Level COVID-19 Data Reporting: The Commonwealth is reporting enhanced community-level data on key COVID-19 metrics as part of the Baker-Polito Administration's efforts to partner with cities and towns to slow the spread of the virus. Based on the average daily cases per 100,000 residents, each city or town has been designated as a higher risk (red), moderate risk (yellow), or lower risk (green) community. Communities with fewer than 5 cases are not given a designation. The average daily incident rate is calculated as follows: Total Cases over 14 days in Douglas (4 cases), Total Population in Douglas 9250 (This is taken from UMass Donohue Institute), 4 cases x 100,000 = 400,000------400,000/9250 = 43.24-----43.24/14 days = 3.08 daily incident rate.(this is just and example to show how the rate is calculated) As of this week Douglas has a 1.52 daily incident rate which places us in the gray category or a lower risk community.

I will be out the next two weeks greeting students and families as they come off the bus and get dropped off in school. I look forward to meeting students and you as well. If you see me feel free to wave and say hello!

Best,

Paul

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