Friday Update 4.2.21

 Regular Order

We will share our reopening plan with the board at a 6 p.m. meeting on Monday April 5. This will be a videoconference meeting and open to the public. (Meeting announcement will be posted later today). In short, our plan recommends returning to regular order with the new 3' distance, masks and hand hygiene on April 26. This time frame will give us time to receive additional furniture, meet with our unions to negotiate the impact of these new plans and for parents to make needed changes to their schedules and daycare arrangements. A full announcement of plans will be made following the board's decision on our plan. For more on how we got here, read yesterday's FAQ posted in this blog.

Summer Program

We are planning to provide two weeks of recreational summer programming for all students K-12 during the final two weeks of July. We are currently searching for a coordinator for this program. We are tentatively planning day trips to places like the Air and Space Museum, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St Helens, the local fish hatchery, etc. Parents will be able to choose daily rather than signing up for full weeks, so kids can pick and choose. The goal is to have each child in our district served at least once this summer by a TSD program. The outcome is to put back some of the joy that was taken from kids over the last year. While the pandemic will still be with us and we'll still need our protocols, most of our plans include outdoor activities and we won't be doing academic instruction. Exploration, exercise, excitement with friends and caring adults. We hope you'll participate.

Counseling

One of the reasons we've been so aggressive in returning to school this year is we saw the impact on mental health for our kids. Referrals to the emergency room are dramatically elevated, child obesity is on the increase and depression and anxiety complaints are elevated. All of these are attributable to reductions in in-person instruction at school.

To address these concerns, we will be increasing our counseling staff next year. Thanks to federal funds, we will be able to place a full-time school counselor at TES and TMS next year. In addition, we'll provide a Social Interventionist (classified staff counselor) to assist. These folks will join our contracted therapist and our THS counselor. 

The pandemic has been an adverse childhood experience with long lasting effects. We want to be sure that students have the supports they need in order to recover and thrive as we work to provide them with opportunities and meaningful experiences.