Letter from the Superintendent: Nov. 16, 2020

November 16, 2020

Dear Centennial School Families,

I first want to thank you for your continued flexibility and support as we navigate the educational landscape during a pandemic.  The effort that has been put forth by our teachers and school staff in general has been nothing short of exemplary and having parents and guardians working alongside them only supports those efforts.

Our school has done well in keeping the virus at bay and out of the building and I believe this has happened as a result of our proactive efforts.  As with any endeavor such as this even the best efforts can have negative effects.  Today we were faced with making a decision as to how we would proceed knowing that a possible exposure was in our school.  I want to reinforce that no positive case has been identified as being present in the school.  Only through contact tracing has it been brought to our attention that a possible exposure exists.  To remain consistent with what steps we have taken in the past with the same situation we performed our contact tracing and sent staff and students home that needed to be.  The specific classes affected were K-1and 7-8.  Please monitor your student if he/she is a member in one of these classes for any symptoms and contact your doctor and/or public health for additional guidance.  The decisions being made during this time are not taken lightly and are made keeping the health and well being of our students, staff, and school community in mind.  The negative results of these decisions is we are at a point where there are not enough substitutes to cover the classes to keep our doors open to in person learning.  Starting tomorrow 11/17/2020 we will move to remote learning for the remainder of the week with the daycare closing for the remainder of the week.  Teachers will continue with their scheduled classes using the remote platform and follow the schedules they have provided to you.  If there are any changes to that schedule your student’s teacher will relay those changes to you.

Our community, our state, and our country are at a junction of this pandemic where numbers are continuing to climb.  With the upcoming Thanksgiving break we request that you practice your due diligence in keeping safe and healthy, practicing social distancing, wearing your mask, if you feel ill remain home and attend to your health.  The same requests that we are making of our staff as they too head into the break.  It takes all of us to keep the virus from spreading and it can be done.  Thank you for trusting us with the education of your student(s) and we all look forward to the time where we can return to a normal school setting.

Sincerely,

Toby Melster

Superintendent

Centennial School District R-1