COVID UPDATE: Message from School Supt. Vince Clark

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who has contributed to our Back2School Plan. We continue to evolve our actions and reactions as COVID makes its impact daily on each of our lives. We have held to the belief that our mission during this public health emergency is to Continue Learning, Feed Kids and Take Care of Each Other. Each of those tenants are challenged each day, but for the most part, they are working while we are doing some normal activities. Certainly, we are not living in normal times.

Last week, we completed our fourth (and first full) week of school, with victories celebrated by our soccer, volleyball, golf, cross country and football teams. More importantly, however, we were able to educate 70 percent of our students in their classrooms, while engaging 30 percent of our students virtually. During that course of time, our technology and maintenance teams collaborated with our local area fire departments to install Wifi hotspots at Shady Grove, Mattoon, Caldwell Springs and Tolu to engage our remote learners. Our food service team was able to prepare breakfast and lunch meals not only for our in-person learners, but also our virtual learners, with a drive thru pickup at CCES each Monday. In addition, our school nurses, counselors, Mountain Comprehensive Care and FRYSC teams were able to take care of physical, social and emotional needs of our students. Our school resource officer provides a sense of safety and security for our students, while our staff checks

temperatures, and ensures not only quality instruction is occurring, but also that their unique social and emotional needs are being met. Our incredible custodial staff has cleaned and sanitized each of our buildings daily to ensure our students are educated in safe and healthy classrooms.

Outdoor istance learning on
campus is commonplace.

Our administration team is collaborating with our local health officials who have been amazing team players through this pandemic as guidance continues to change. Some have questioned our decision to stay in school while we quarantine a few students during our recent community spike, but we feel that those actions are protecting our students and staff while preserving our ability to remain in school and play sports. Our Healthy@School interventions are working. I’ve come to realize, all of our decisions have a Risk vs Reward factor. Our reward is to be able to connect our students with caring staff and support services inside the buildings in a safe way. The risk is that from time to time, situations requiring quarantine may occur among our students and staff. It’s unfortunate and rarely happens at a good time, but it is necessary to protect our students and staff. However, those who feel the risk is too great continue to have the virtual option, which is available at any time.

In closing, we have just begun this journey into the 2020-21 school year, and we are off to a really good start. I know, however, challenges will wax and wane as we continue this unprecedented year. We will continue to collaborate to make decisions that are best for our students and staff, and we continue to ask our parents and community to have patience and flexibility with us as we navigate this public health emergency.

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