Board Members:
It is great to have our students back in the buildings. Having children return to school after this summer recess is testament to the excitement and planning that needed to go into this evolution. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to our teachers, building administrators, and all classified staff for the amount of work that had to be done and the attention to detail that had to be observed. We also need to give a tip of the hat to our construction crew, they finished the job just in the nick of time!
COVID Status: I'm going to attempt a weekly memo to the constituency each Friday afternoon that outlines our status and shares the pertinent data that we are looking at each day. The linked matrix above will form the nexus of this communication. I won't include that digest here since it does run about two pages, but you will be able to access it from the announcement section at the top of our Return to Learn page on the district website.
At this point I am incredibly proud of our students and staff for observing our masking requirements. A correction of a single student (here or there) without a face mask, at least at this point in the year appears to be the exception to the rule. I saw our kindergarten students come in from recess today, and the first order of business before entering the building was donning a face covering.
As anticipated, our first day enrollment is down. While expected due to COVID-19, this is a significant drop in student enrollment. Of course it is worth noting that while this is preliminary and unofficial, it does provide us with our first real benchmark for the school year. We knew coming into this year we were going to lose enrollment due to the pandemic for a variety of reasons, so this really comes as no surprise. These numbers do include students who are participating in voluntary offsite instruction and will continue to fluctuate over the coming weeks before we finalize our enrollment during the traditional certification window in October.
Finally, I'll note our football season will begin tonight when the Pirates travel to Waterloo Columbus. If you are interested in watching the game, I might suggest catching it online. Columbus has limited their attendance to four tickets per roster member.
Have a great weekend and stay cool. It's going to be another hot one this weekend!
Dr. Tony Voss, Superintendent
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