Reopening Schools: July 22 Update

Dear CVSD Families, Faculty, and Staff,

At last night’s CVSD Board meeting, I gave an update to the Board regarding plans for reopening school this Fall. Although we will have more detail to share later this week, I thought it was important to share some highlights from our discussion.

Our leadership team has been working hard since the day school ended to develop a plan to reopen schools while meeting the requirements of the Agencies of Education and Department of Health. Our decision has been informed by frequent meetings with the Secretary of Education, Dr. Mark Levine and public health physician Dr. Breena Holmes as well as bi-weekly meetings with the Champlain Valley superintendents. These conversations have been singularly focused on how schools can meet the statewide guidelines and open in the fall.

Our conversations and planning have centered around two key premises:

• The safety of our students, faculty and staff is paramount
• Students need to be in school

From the beginning, our hope was to be able to bring our students back to school full time, especially our elementary students - while staying within the health and safety guidelines. However, after much thought and deliberation, it became clear that in order to maintain the social distance requirements outlined in the Agency of Education guidance, we would not be able to have all students in our buildings at the same time. As a result, we will be reopening in a hybrid model. This means that students will be in school in person for two days per week and will access instruction remotely on the remaining days. Additional, detailed information about the plan for our PreK-8 students is forthcoming.

We are also working to develop a fully remote model, a centralized option for families to select, that would provide a rigorous opportunity for students to access their education from home without accessing our school buildings. We believe our remote model will be far superior to the traditional homeschool option offered through the Agency of Education and are hopeful that our families will choose this option if their students are not able to participate in our hybrid model.

Information about the CVU hybrid model will be shared directly by Principal Adam Bunting later today.

We know that you have many more questions. Please know that additional information will follow, including how health and safety checks will be handled, and protocols for what happens when there is an exposure in our community. In addition to the school-based communications you will receive from your school(s), CVSD will be sharing a newly developed resource site that will contain real-time information about the opening of our schools.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through the many details necessary to ensure the best possible health and safety for all. We will communicate with you regularly as new information is known.

Elaine Pinckney, Superintendent