Hello Everyone,
I would like to welcome all of you back to a new school year. First, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued patience as we are working right up to the last minute to prepare our schools for opening. We recognize that much of what has come at you has been last minute due to the nature of the planning process and some of the logistical challenges with the development of new routines at each of our school buildings. Again, we appreciate your continued understanding and flexibility.
I know that the new school year brings excitement and potentially renewed concern and worry. Our faculty, staff, and administrators have prepared themselves to begin the process of welcoming back students over the next couple of days. The district’s re-opening task force, consisting of students, parents, community members, faculty, staff, and administrators helped develop our reopening plans to welcome back students, faculty, and staff safely and we are grateful for their hours of thoughtful work.
As we begin in-person instruction, please remember the following safety tips:
- Upon arrival at school tomorrow, please be sure to wait for direction from school staff before exiting the school bus or your vehicle if you are being dropped off. School staff will need to ensure that every student has completed a health screening prior to exiting the school bus or their car at drop off.
- To alleviate congestion, we are asking that parents do not exit their cars to walk their child/children into or up to the school building.
- Please follow the directions of our school staff as we anticipate more traffic at each school site in the morning.
- Ensure that your child comes prepared with their own face covering. If they do not have one, the school will provide a face covering for your child which must be worn throughout the school day unless directed otherwise by a teacher or staff member.
- Encourage your child to follow floor signs and to remain socially distant from others to the fullest extent possible. We will be discussing this with students over the first few weeks of school but your support in helping at home will help reinforce these important safety tips.
If you have a CES student, and your first day of in-person instruction is not until Friday, you should receive an email from your child’s teacher outlining the schedule for the day tomorrow. In addition, the information will be added to the district website for your reference. For students at the high school, they should have received Google Classroom and Google Meet invitations. If you, or your child, has any trouble accessing information tomorrow, please notify the school so that we can troubleshoot the issues with you.
We have received many questions about the use of the PikMyKid app which the district will be using to conduct daily health screenings of our students and to assist with the logistics of arrival and dismissal. Information for how to download the app, register, and utilize the key features can be found on our district webpage. We encourage you to download the app and register if possible. The data on the app is imported from our student information system. If you have difficulty registering, it is possible that we do not have updated contact information for you in our system. We suggest that you utilize the support function in the app first and then contact the school if directed to do so so that we can assist you. If you are unable to get this working properly for the first day or two of school, please do not worry. We will conduct a screening upon arrival on campus.
Although much planning has been done, we anticipate that some of these new routines and processes will take much longer than usual. In addition, we anticipate that there will be new logistical issues that will arise as we begin to initiate these new procedures and routines. In other words, we expect it to be bumpy. Your continued patience and flexibility will be needed over the first few days and weeks of the school year. Please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or concerns. We look forward to getting started on what is sure to be a very different and memorable school year. Welcome back!
Sincerely,
Jason M. Chevrier
Superintendent
