Ada students will return to classroom learning on Monday, Dec. 7, in two different models. Those are explained in this story from the school website.
After several weeks of remote learning, the state, county, and our community are still experiencing a rise in the number of positive Covid cases and quarantines.
However, we feel that we need to safely get our students back in the building and with their teachers.
Our experience with contact tracing has shown that each positive student case has resulted in 10-20 quarantines each time.
Also, the majority of our student cases have been more high school students than elementary. If we can spread those students out more in the classrooms, we can significantly reduce the number of students potentially infected and/or quarantined should new cases arise by ensuring 6 feet of distance between desks in most, if not all, classrooms.
Kindergarten-third grade plan
Therefore, beginning Monday, Dec. 7, grades K-3 will begin attending school in person for all five days a week, as they had for the first quarter.
We have had very few cases in these grade levels. Additionally, these students stay together, largely, and are less independent learners and thus can benefit from more in person instruction.
However, should a case arise in a classroom, it may be possible to place one class or one grade level into remote learning for the 14-day quarantine period, allowing the rest of the primary students to continue the five-day-a-week delivery model.
Fourth grade-12th grade plan
Grades 4-12 will be resuming classes Monday, Dec. 7, under a hybrid model that we have not yet utilized.
Students in grades 4-12 whose last names begin with letters A-K (Purple Group) will go to school in person on Monday and Tuesday, and will do remote learning on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Students in grades 4-12 whose last names begin with letters L-Z (Gold Group) will go to school in person on Thursday and Friday, and will do remote learning on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
As you can see, all students grades 4-12 will be remote learning on Wednesdays. The district will deep clean the facilities, classrooms, etc., on Wednesday between the Purple Group and the Gold Group.
Teachers will work on Wednesdays, helping any students who need one on one time, checking work from the remote group, posting lessons and activities, etc.
They will be available to answer emails, reach out to families of students who may be struggling, and meet with students one on one.
We believe that changing to this learning model allows us to instruct students safely and effectively given our current situation.
We will utilize this learning model from Monday, Dec. 7, through Friday, Dec. 18. We will reevaluate the state of our district at the end of the Christmas break to determine our course of action for the beginning of the new year.
January plan will be announced in late December
We will likely post a plan for returning after break, on or about Dec. 30. Please note that the changes that we are making for the remainder of this semester do not impact our current online students.
As always, these plans are subject to change as circumstances, staffing availability, local or state mandates, etc., change.
We realize that students in some family units may have different last names. This may mean that some of your children are in the Purple Group and some are in the Gold Group. If that presents a problem for your family, you may email your child’s principal (K-5 Mr. Thaxton, [email protected], or 6-12 Mr. Lee, [email protected]) to address that issue.
As balance between groups is important, we will not be considering changes to a student’s group for any other reasons.
If you are requesting a change to allow all of your children in your family unit or home to go to school on the same in-person days, please make that contact by the end of the day Thursday, Dec. 3, so that bus drivers and teachers can be made aware of these limited adjustments.
We realize that no scenario that is less than students all attending all day, five days a week, in person, is the best scenario.
However, in this unprecedented time, the safety of students and staff is of paramount importance. We look forward to the day when we can resume more traditional operations. We appreciate greatly the flexibility of our amazing staff and our amazing Bulldog families as we move forward through this pandemic.
We continue to encourage families to follow all the precautions offered by the Ohio Department of Health regarding hand-washing, mask wearing, social distancing, and limiting gatherings, so we can get back to some sense of normalcy sooner rather than later.
Please reach out to your building principal if you have questions about this plan, or to me ([email protected]) if you have general questions about Covid or district level operations.
