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Yesterday, Public Health rescinded their order regarding professional and youth athletics and deferred to the directions of the Washington State Dept.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