2.19.21 Update

 Lewis County Metrics

These metrics will change every two weeks. Note that all regions of the state are in phase 2 and the West region (Lewis County) is meeting all four goal areas. This is great news for continuing on the path to regular order.

School Operations

On Feb. 26 and Mar. 19, our staff will pause instruction and work with students and families to spend some time on self-care. These will be remote-only learning days for all students. Since these are Fridays, this will only be a change for a few students.

Transportation

We are currently transporting fewer students over more miles and for longer durations than during a typical year. We're doing this to accommodate our hybrid scheduling and to provide separation of students on busses. Each bus has 8 different routes and when a student decides to return to in-person instruction from remote-only, it changes all of the routes for that bus. In order to minimize the disruption to all families on a route, we have been working to find stops that will accommodate many students and that won't change frequently. This may mean that your child won't be picked up at your driveway and may need to catch the bus further away from home.  This is not being done to save money. In fact, we are spending much more to transport students this year than at any time in our history. Decisions about stops and routes are being made to best serve the most students and families in the district. For questions about your stop or route, please contact Don Hall at 360.864.2393 during business hours. If you call during route times, he'll need to call you back as he is currently driving a route.

Board Meetings

The Governor is allowing in-person meetings to take place in phase 2. The board decided to return to in-person meetings beginning with the March 18 meeting. We are allowed to have up to 25% of the room capacity for these meetings and plan to hold board meetings in the Commons at TMS to maximize the number of people who can attend. Regular board meetings begin at 7 p.m.

EP&O Levy

Our thanks go out to the voters of our community for your support of the levy. Results were certified today. This means that when we come back to regular order next year, we will be able to fund all of the staff and programs that our community has come to expect from the school district. These are difficult financial times for many people in our community and made this vote more difficult. We appreciate that in spite of those difficulties, the majority of our voters felt it was worth it.