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Plans for Reopening Schools 2020-21

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Mr. Connor lines out Columbus ISD's plan to reopen schools for the 2020-21 school year.

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hi everyone I'm Jim Connor and I'm the superintendent of schools here in Columbus ISD we created a set of videos to help communicate and info our plans for reopening this fall this is the first of the set of videos that you'll see all the videos will include registration on covid-19 plans and remote instruction and it'll be coming in the next few weeks will I for two options this year the first is the traditional in school daily instruction and will also offer virtual eLearning construction that you need to be a in a synchronous which is recorded instruction or can be taken if it can be learning at 8 steering wheel time remote control Nerf providing a safe learning environment for all our students in our staff and that has been a singular Focus this summer has been our top priority at this time we're still planning to begin school on August but the very fluid situation and has many variables that are out of our control it's important to start the school off in the safest possible way we can so we bought that the follow the instruction set forth by the centers of Disease Control do do stay safe learning environment and Disease Control have actually given us three tools to be able to follow to make sure that our schools are safe for opening to number one is should parks that we should use to consider opening will reopening be consistent and applicable with state and local orders is the school ready to protect children and employees who are at a higher risk for severe illness are we willing and able to screen students and employees on arrival for symptoms and history of exposure if all of those three are yes then we can move on to the next tier of of school opening if any of them are no we will not open the second-tier are recommended health and safety actions in place can the district provide healthy hygiene practices in hand-washing and employees making sure that they wear a clock face covering or a clear plastic mask if I cleaning disinfection and ventilation can we encourage social distancing for all our groups and can we train all employees and staff on health and safety protocols if any of these safeguards cannot be met we need to meet to say guards before we can consider opening but if we met all safeguards are final test is to make sure that we have monitoring in place we want to make sure we develop and Implement procedures to check for signs and symptoms for students and employ daily on arrival if it's feasible we want to encourage anybody who is sick to be able to stay home and to make a plan for students or employees who are sick we want to be able to regularly communicate to our constituents to make sure that our local Hardee's employees and everyone is aware of our policies and procedures and we want to make sure that we monitor students and employed absences and create a flexible lease space for everyone and then we have to if only we have to be ready to consult with local Health authorities if there are cases in in a facility or an increase in the case in the local area if our hospitals do not have enough beds to meet the needs we need to know that we need to be able to communicate if any of these are no then we have to meet the safeguards first but if all of them are yes and we feel it's safe to open schools and to begin monitoring so one of the things we wanted to do if we wanted to Bella Fiore leveled response plan something that makes it easy for people to understand what the situation is like on any given day in Columbus ISD so we developed a color-coded planned that I will take time to explain to you now green level is when we have absolutely no Community spread of infection and everything on that situation the district campus and offices will be open all non high-risk staff and report to students should have a regular day of school and parents can of course choose to keep their students home without penalty but and distance learning options requirements will be in place for them but it's just like a regular school day the next step is which is minimal Community spread of infection so we plan at that point to have all district campuses and office is open all non high-risk traffic report to work self quarantine would be required if someone travel to a would hot spot but students would report to school we would be able to maintain social distance thing parents can choose to keep students at home without penalty distance learning options and requirements will be in place for everyone we wouldn't be offering curbside meals we would again self quarantine if someone travel to a hotspot have multiple social distancing strategies implemented at all facilities in all traveling at extracurricular activities including UIL would be canceled the third level yellow and that's when I reach moderate Community spread of infection districts in campuses and offices are closed the only people who are there are critical selected staff teachers plan and deliver remote learning instruction places in district offices will be closed Bush fewer than 14 days distance learning options and requirements are in place students would be promoting in that day all curbside meals would be implemented at selected sites much like did this summer and all travel in extracurricular activities would be canceled if we have a particular campus that has an outbreak then we would consider about closing the campus in what we call a orange level no staff and report to that closed building with the exception of the maintenance crew to disinfect a facility teachers from that campus would then plan and deliver remote learning lessons the idea here is to close the building for 2 to 5 days to deepen disinfectant deep clean per CDC guidelines to coordinate with the health department for contract racing and Implement on further quarantine measures the idea is that within two to five days we would be able to reopen that campus and you should be able to attend the most severe case is red and red is when we would have substantial Community spread of infection District campuses and offices will all be closed only critical select staff would be at at work and teachers will be planning and delivering remote instruction we're planning this for 1 campuses we know will be closed for more than 14 days distance learning options and requirements are in place students shouldn't repeat curbside meal service will be implemented at select sites but all activities would be canceled so let's talk about our plan and what does it look like what's the safest way to reopen each campus in this is day so we will post this plan on our website for everyone to peruse so the idea of this is to regret of the document that has a lot of frequently asked questions to answer any questions that you feel free to contact your campus or district offices if there's a question that you have that hasn't been addressed and the idea of this plan was to make it easy listening and learning we want to take away the educational Lee's of the presentation so I plan it has is reopening it is subject to change and it's based on guidelines received from the local state and federal authorities but an s we have two options option A is an in-person on campus instruction which is full-time option b is a full-time virtual e-learning synchronous or asynchronous learning we're also thinking about offering a hybrid option which would have 2 days of in-school instruction in 3 days of remote instruction and this is would only be in use if we could not achieve social distancing protocols the two-day-a-week hybrid option is the only hybrid option that we are willing we will offer so what are the questions is can I switch options during the year well there are there is a lot of fluidity in the options but we would ask that if you choose to do virtual school that you make a 6-week commitment to Virtual School we ask that so we know that we can maintain social distancing in our classrooms with the number of students that are in traditional learning can we maintain social distancing if everyone chooses traditional learning and the answer is yes as long as we can maintain 14 students per class we feel that we can have all social distancing protocols intact however if classes if class size exceeds that we know that we cannot and at that point we would look into the hybrid option parents are asking us about the social and emotional care of their students and we want to make sure that you know that we will be offering social and emotional care for all of our kids we know that this is a difficult time for adult and realize it must be even greater lt4 Rockettes with many safety precautions that will take place within c i s t we will temperatures check all students and staff daily as they entered the building or as they enter the school bus we'll have mask and fake face shield guidance for everyone in the building and we even have included a bus operating procedures and we plan on running our normal bus routes but one of the difficulties is it's very difficult how to maintain social distancing on the bus and we know now that there are many safety precautions on in places on the buses however social distancing cannot be maintained so we are asking all students to wear masks and we will do many of the CDC guidelines to prevent virus spread but if there is an uncomfortable level that a parent has we advised to please drive your child to school probably monitoring and clean common areas we made an extensive plan car maintenance and operations Department to make sure that everything is clean and sanitized we have put in place extracurricular precautions so that any student who wants to put participate in any extracurricular activity is safe we provided Hotspots for both our remote students and if we have enough for a traditionally school students many parents have to register for traditional or Virtual School and a registration this has moved to an online process we will have videos forthcoming that will explain exactly the process to you in the next few weeks can a student who chooses Virtual School still participate in athletics and our answer is yes what would be able to provide meals for Virtual School students well at this point there is currently no guidance from the state or federal regulations concerning this however all students weather there chualar traditional are required the normal in immunizations would be different from how we taught in the spring and there will be significant differences we will be Distributing technology and hotspot from each student home campuses and a hotspot will be given initially out per household if we have additional hotspot that we can spare then we will be able to give out hot spots per student we realize that this doesn't answer all of your questions and we were be available to any other questions that you have so please feel free to contact your campus Administration or the district offices thank you

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Plans for Reopening Schools 2020-21

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