A message from the Superintendent

Superintendent's Update #2

July 16, 2020

Dear CCSD Parents and Staff,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to you today as a follow up to my communication earlier this week regarding reopening our schools in September.

As you know, Governor Cuomo has created an infection rate metric to determine whether our campus can open, and, in the first week in August, will announce if students will be able to return to school. In response, on Monday the NYS Education Department (NYSED) and NYS Department of Health (NYSDOH) provided guidance on reopening schools. Subsequently, New York State also shared guidelines and a reopening plan checklist. A few hours ago, NYSED released additional guidance for school districts to follow.

I realize that you need to plan for the fall and are anxiously seeking a better understanding of what September will look like for our children. There is a tremendous amount of guidance for my team to process in a short amount of time. This guidance has been designed to ensure that we are opening our schools in a way that is both educationally sound and physically safe for our children and staff. This cannot be a rushed process, and we will continue to refine our plan over the next five weeks so we may meet the needs of our students and staff.

In our planning process the District needs to account for the following three potential instructional models:

In-Person Instruction: All students return to school and learn in our classrooms.
Hybrid Instruction: Some students would be in school while others are learning from home, simultaneously.
Remote Instruction: All students are learning from home with the understanding that plans must include substantial daily interaction between students and teachers.

Since April, our teams have made planning for a number of different reopening scenarios a top priority. We have been collecting data, procuring supplies, and leveraging technology in the event that we would be reopening in the future under very different circumstances. Using your feedback as a guide, we are currently partnering with our faculty, to develop a powerful framework that will provide instructional consistency and continuity regardless of whether we are open in-person in the fall or not.

In all three models (in-person, hybrid, remote) a parent may choose to keep their child home. In this case, the student will be able to follow their course/class schedule, access, and participate in class remotely, until the pandemic is over. This will also allow students who are quarantined, who would otherwise be in school, to access their classes in real-time. It is also possible that a teacher may need to interact with their class remotely while students are in session due to a quarantine order or other medical reason. This approach will allow instruction to continue as seamlessly as possible while honoring the medical needs of our community.

September Planning:
Students in grades K-8 will be invited to return to school for the full school day, absent any new unforeseen NYSED or NYSDOH mandates. However, the way we deliver instruction during the school day will be different based on our social distancing practices. In mid-August your building principal will share our approach and the logistics of how we will safely negotiate our spaces.

Due to the unique challenges of a high school campus and schedule, there is a distinct possibility that we may need to run a modified Greeley schedule in September to support social distancing. There may be full days or portions of the day where students will attend school in-person while others will access instruction remotely. Principal Corsilia will contact our families as soon as we have a suitable model that allows us to move forward given our constraints.

We continue to seek clarity about the logistics of socially distancing students on the bus, or whether we can run our buses as in the past, provided students wear masks. Right now, there is conflicting language between the NYSDOH and NYSED documents. I share this with you now as we may need to understand, in the future, if parents can drive students to and from school.

We plan to send a parent survey to determine if you prefer that your child learn remotely in September, if our campuses can be open. To support your decision, this survey will be sent in August after we have shared the details of in-school plans.

Finally, it is possible that we may need to delay our start date. If this is the case, I may move all of our professional development days to the front of the calendar, or we may start with a series of half-days so that our teachers have more time for onsite planning in September. If this is necessary, I will share an adjusted calendar for the Board of Education’s consideration in early August.

The principals and I will continue to share important developments in our planning as we work throughout the summer. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we take the time necessary over the next few weeks to develop the safest and most appropriate way to move forward as a learning community.

Sincerely,

Christine Ackerman, PhD
Superintendent of Schools