August 20, 2021
Dear Parents and Guardians:
We are planning daily for the opening of our schools on September 1st. It is a challenge to make these plans not knowing how the virus, state government, and national climate will change, behave, and react in the next few weeks, months, and for the rest of the school year.
Last Wednesday, August 18th, our School Board voted to open schools without a mask mandate. It is recommended that students and staff wear masks, but masks are not mandatory in the school. Any student or any staff member that chooses to wear a mask may do so. If infection rates significantly increase in our area or if we have infections within our schools, we will revisit the masking issue and may implement a mask mandate. Please note, while masks are not mandatory in our schools, masks are federally mandated to be worn on our buses at all times.
We are opening schools fully with live instruction five days a week in all schools and in all classrooms. Remote education in general is not an option for students this year. Special arrangements may be made for students that have disabilities, are immune compromised, or have other health impairments that put them at a higher health risk for COVID.
We will do our best to attempt to keep everyone socially distanced throughout the day, but socially distancing state mandates are no longer in effect. All students and staff will be asked to wash their hands frequently throughout the day. Hand sanitizer stations will be provided throughout the school. We will continue to be diligent this year in our extra cleaning, wiping down of desks, doorknobs, and touch surfaces throughout the day. Last year we installed Plasma air filter systems in all our classrooms that do a complete air exchange every hour filtering out and killing 99.9% of all the pathogens in the air.
Our schools have developed plans for remote instruction should schools once again be closed due to COVID.
This has been, and continues to be, a major change for all of us and none of us have all the answers. Thank you for your patience, understanding, and cooperation as we work together to solve problems, find answers and work through this difficult situation. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Enjoy the last week of summer- see you in September!
Sincerely,
Ronald C. Ramsay
Superintendent of Schools
MSAD #37