Weekly Briefing 9.25.20

 Current Lewis County COVID conditions

Cases in Lewis County increased during this two-week rolling average to the highest since the onset of this record. For comparison, Cowlitz County is 33, Pierce County is 56.1, Thurston County is 22.7, Pacific County is 78.6, Gray's Harbor is 169.9 and Yakima County is 87.5. Only six counties have higher case rates than Lewis. 

As I mentioned in last week's blog, Lewis County Public Health is recommending that schools in the county consider allowing Kindergarteners to attend school on campus. This recommendation is intended to balance the risk of infection with the impact of not being in school for our youngest students.

Kindergarten

On Monday, Sept. 28, we will use volunteer adults as "Kindergarten students" to test our school opening protocols. Their "parents" will complete a morning attestation that the kids have no COVID symptoms and are clear to come to school. They'll be greeted at the bus or parent drop zone by staff who will take their temps and make sure they've completed the attestation. Those whose parents didn't attest by phone will be screened by staff. Students will go to breakfast to test our distancing in the cafeteria and then travel to classrooms by cohort. We'll do recess, hand washing, and briefly do everything including dismissal in a two-hour period. Our goal is to surface things that we didn't consider so that we can address those during the next week. 

On Monday, October 5, we'll welcome our Kindergarten students to school. We'll be teaching each cohort on campus for half-day. This will keep cohorts to 10 or less students. The a.m. group will learn on campus and the p.m. group will learn at home in the morning. In the afternoon, the p.m. group will learn on campus and the a.m. group will learn at home. On Fridays, all cohorts will learn at home all day. Friday is the day that teachers will use to prepare the at-home lessons.

We are watching to see how this configuration works and using lessons we learn from this to guide our return to school planning for the remaining TES grades. When it is safe to do so, we want to be able to move quickly to return students to on-campus instruction.

Athletics

We will end WIAA's mandated no-coach period on Monday and be able to host modified practices for all athletics in the ramp up to Winter season. We plan to begin athletic practices in keeping with all of the Dept. of Health and WIAA guidelines on Tuesday Sept. 29. Athletes will work in cohorts of 10 or less. We weighed the value to students of being able to have some physical outlet with the risk of infection and determined that if we hold to the guidelines, the physical activity will boost the morale of our students and community. 

Extracurricular activities such as clubs and groups will begin meeting outside of the school day in groups of 10 or less as soon as we're confident that we're doing a good job with our athletic teams. 

Your Role

Lewis County has one of the most aggressive return-to-school recommendations of any county in Washington. As you can see from the current data, we're also one of the most active counties in the state for cases. In order to continue on this aggressive return-to-school plan, we all need to work together to reduce cases. The only weapons we have to fight the virus are masks, hand washing and social distancing. We all need to use all of these weapons in the fight against this virus.

Large indoor gatherings without masks and close proximity to others repeatedly end up increasing cases. In our county, we see this in congregate living (convalescent centers, correctional facilities). Schools are congregate settings. In order to reduce the likelihood of a spread of the disease in school, we need to reduce the spread of the disease in our community at large so that it doesn't come to school.

This virus has created the fourth largest mass casualty event in U.S. history. Only the Civil War, WWII and the 1918 Pandemic have killed more Americans. This virus has done it's damage in less than a quarter of the time that we experienced in the two wars mentioned.

The Path Forward

It is our desire to safely return to campus as soon as possible. Research on the effectiveness of distance education demonstrates that it is less effective than in-person instruction. While our teachers are using techniques to increase the effectiveness, the research is clear (Hattie, 2009)* 

In WWII, families did without things like butter, gasoline, and coffee in order to support the troops fighting overseas. There were blackout curtains and towns would turn off all lights at night in order to protect against enemy bombers. Americans endured years of self-deprivation in order to prevail against a common enemy. We are currently in a similar fight and what we're being asked to do is minimal in comparison to our ancestors. I have been encouraged this week to see people who I know hate wearing masks, question whether they are necessary and feel uncomfortable wearing their mask in spite of the discomfort. I interpret this as good citizenship and care for their neighbors. On behalf of all of us at TSD who are working hard to serve children remotely and also bring them back to school, we thank you for your efforts.

*An effect size of .4 means that for one year's effort, a student will make one year's growth. We look for strategies that have greater than .4. Distance Education has a .14 effect size based on an analysis of 1,143 studies.

Weekly Briefing 9.18.20

 In the interest of keeping our community informed, I plan to provide a weekly briefing on developments related to our COVID response and a return to school. In addition, I'm converting my Tuesday night Parent Partners Office Hours to a general Q&A related to our school district. Patrons are invited to log on to that meeting on Tuesday evenings at 6 p.m. for a time to chat about issues related to the school district and our work to bring students back to the classroom.

Tuesday Office Hours 6-7 p.m. (click here to access the meeting)

Lewis County COVID metrics today

Following a recommendation from Lewis County Public Health and Social Services, TSD has begun considering bringing Kindergarteners to school in-person. We currently have 57 students enrolled in this grade and anticipate 54 will attend. The Response Team comprised of principals, transportation, maintenance and operations, School Nurse, counselor, Athletic Director, District Office secretary and me will meet with the Kindergarten faculty on Monday to review our plans and make adjustments to meet current conditions. These plans begin with the student and family prior to the bus or parent transporting and end with the child's return to their home at the end of the day. These plans include health screening, temperature checks, confirmation of all parent contact information, masking, social distancing, cleaning and disinfection, hand washing, recess protocols, food service and toileting. We're working to "pressure test" our plans to see where the weaknesses are prior to students being on campus. 

This work now is crucial to the return of other students. By preparing with a smaller group of students, we learn how to best prepare for a larger group. In addition, we become confident and practiced in our protocols at school and will be in a better position to keep our kids and families safe.

Regardless of our best efforts, you need to know that there will be cases of COVID. Part of our planning includes being able to respond to those cases in a way that is appropriate and respects the individual's privacy. We have letters prepared to inform those who need to know when there is a positive case. We also will be cooperating with contact tracing efforts by Lewis County Public Health. It is important to note that a single case does not mean that we're closing school or even the classroom. We will follow public health directives in all cases.

Athletics

Yesterday, Public Health rescinded their order regarding professional and youth athletics and deferred to the directions of the Washington State Dept. of Health and the Governor's Safe Start initiative. This has nothing to do with interscholastic athletics programs in schools. This only relates to youth sports (like Little League and Youth Soccer) and pro athletics (like the Seahawks and the Mariners). 

TSD's connection to youth sports is through our venues. TSD venues will remain closed to public use until students are able to return to school and our students can use the venues.

Board Meetings

The board is currently conducting their meetings via videoconferencing. The Dept. of Health limits gatherings to 10 people. The Governor confirmed this in his proclamation that reduced Phase 3 gatherings to 10 (from 50). By the time we collect 5 board members, the superintendent, secretary and the people who are reporting to the board, we have 10 in the room. Any public members interested in the meeting would need to be in a room down the hall watching on a video feed. We felt that since we'd be doing video for the public, it was safer to do video for all. 

I've had questions about public comments and why  we only accept written comments at video meetings. Connections on the internet are troublesome. There is often delays and sometimes, connections fail in the middle of a presentation. The meeting either has to wait for the person to return (not always possible) or go ahead and circle back later. It was felt last spring that taking written public comment only allowed for more and better input to the board than was possible with video. Since this has been our practice in the past, it would be unfair to those who wanted to speak but were denied in past months to allow people to present verbally now. Public comment and a more conversational interaction is expected when we're able to return to regular order.

Talk to Us

Every time a parent or student has had a problem this year and has asked for an accommodation for that problem (short of returning to the building), our team has been able to find a way to resolve the issue. However, we have had no luck solving problems that we don't know about or that are shared on social media. If your child is struggling, contact their teacher and their principal. Think about what you'd like to see done differently and what's causing the problem and ask for help. You'll be glad you did.

I haven't heard a single person say, "I'm sure glad we're doing school this way now. It's so much better. We should have been doing it like this all along." If you don't like what's happening right now, you're in good company and you need to know that we're all working for the day that we can stop doing school this way. In the meantime, we're all committed to serving you and supporting you to the best of our ability. And that is considerable.

Best for good health,

Chris Rust

Superintendent

Distance Learning and Reopening Schools update

 I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We are in some of the most difficult times that any of us have experienced. We are all working harder and with less certainty that our work will do any good. We are all trying to make the best of a difficult situation and the best isn't nearly good enough for any of us. While we all want our children to be in school in regular order, we also want all of our friends, neighbors, colleagues and family members to come through this pandemic alive and without lasting physical, neurological, emotional or mental injuries. We are, all of us, fearful of our capacity to meet this challenge. On top of all of that, we're existing in an environment filled with smoke that causes us to feel more anxious.

As of September 16, 2020 at 1:30 p.m. here is the case data for Washington State:

The state is at 80.5 cases per 100,000. This is a two week rolling average that takes into account new cases only and does not consider recoveries, hospitalizations or deaths. I think about this like the RPMs on a tachometer in my car. 25 per 100,000 would be idling. When people say, "COVID will always be with us." this is what they're talking about. Not 0 cases, 25/100,000 or less.

Here is Lewis County alone:

Lewis County is currently at 75.5 cases per 100,000. This is great news because earlier this month, we were at 120. When cases began to decline, Lewis County Public Health, in collaboration with educators and pediatricians, determined that it was safe to begin looking at bringing Kindergarteners back to the schools. Toledo is currently working to do just that as are all other districts in the county. The problem is the projected cases for the future.

When we look at where we are (the blue line) it appears that we're making progress at reducing our cases. But when you look at what is projected for the rolling average taking into account the number of new cases that don't show up in the 14 day data point, we are predicted to be 125.8 for the period of Aug 27-Sep 10 (gray dotted line). State COVID data Lewis County currently has the 10th highest rate of the 39 counties in the state.

Other data looks promising: the infection rate (R Naught value) is currently less than 1 (this means that every person who is positive for COVID is infecting only one or fewer people before they find out they are infected. Measles is 14), hospital beds remain available and the number of COVID patients in hospital is below the "idle speed" of our "engine". 

Our efforts in the county have been about "dialing up" reentry to schools so that we're sure of our new practices of distancing, cohorting, transporting, cleaning, disinfecting and teaching about masks and hand washing. Our concern is that if we reenter too quickly, we'll be forced to close again. Our other concern is that if staff become infected, we aren't sure we'll have substitutes to take their place and that those substitutes will have the new skills needed to teach both on campus and remotely.

Right now, we're taking the recommendation of LC Public Health and planning to return Kindergarten to TES full time Monday through Friday. All but three of our families have indicated they'll send their children. We don't have a date certain right now, but it will be after Sept. 28. 

We're watching Mossyrock and Boistfort to see what their outcomes are in the next three weeks. We're hopeful that they will not have any negative outcomes and that this will be an indication to the rest of us on how we might reenter the buildings. We're also gearing ourselves for cases in our district. We expect that there will be infections, quarantines and sickness. We're praying that there are no lasting outcomes or deaths. Remember that viruses can live in our bodies for our whole lives. The Chicken Pox we had as children is the same virus that attacks us in old age as shingles. The cold sores we got as kids stay with us for our whole lives and create cold sores later under stress. We still don't know what this virus is capable of. 

In the meantime, the staff, teachers, administrators and all of us at Toledo School District have never worked harder on behalf of children than we are this year. We are grateful to all those parents and community members who have sent us words of encouragement and support. Here's what we know:

We are putting out schedules and assignments each Monday by 9 a.m. for the week so that families can plan when they'll do their school work. We're engaging students via videoconferencing software (zoom) more than ever. 69% of our students have perfect attendance so far this year. I hear often from families that while this isn't ideal, it is becoming manageable. I hear from teachers that they are beginning to get the hang of this. The happiest families are those who stay in close touch with their teachers and principals. When there is a problem, they surface that problem along with solutions that might work better and work together with our staff to make it better. 

I have a Parent Partner class online where I do lessons on how our learning management system works as well as information about how to support your child in an online environment. On Tuesdays at 6 p.m. I host an online "office hours" where parents can ask questions and get instruction on  specific concerns. We've had three such sessions. Tuesday Office Hours Click on this link to join up next Tuesday at 6.

Finally, we hear parents who think we should return to the buildings immediately. We also hear parents who are concerned about that. We hear staff who think we should return to the buildings immediately and we hear staff who are concerned about that. All of us want to return to regular order. All of us. We can always commit to you is that we will make decisions based on what is best for kids. We may differing views on what is best for kids, but that will always be our focus. Our mission remains the same- provide opportunities and meaningful experiences to empower students to achieve their goals. Each child, each day, each classroom. We are committed to fulfilling this mission. We are committed to your children's success.

If you have questions or want your voice included in the conversation, I invite you to call or email me. You may also email a public comment for inclusion on the board agenda. Until we meet again, I wish you and your family good health and safety.