Reopening Plan Letter
Arickaree Families,
The Arickaree School District plans to return in-person instruction for the 2020-21 school year, following all required health and safety protocols. Washington County school district superintendents have been collaborating with members of our local health department, area hospitals, county commissioners and local school boards to develop a Reopening of Schools Plan for this fall. This plan incorporates three phases based on state and local guidelines to help keep students and staff as safe as possible. The goal of all area superintendents is to provide in-person learning while doing our best to protect against a large-scale outbreak of COVID. The Arickaree school administrative team and members of the staff will be working on details of the plan specific to our school, over the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday I sent out a text message notifying you of the opportunity to participate in COVID-19 testing in Cope this Friday. Let me explain why. Last week a couple of other superintendents from Washington County and I approached the commissioners to ask them to write a variance to allow us to move to a Protect Your Neighbor status. This variance affects us by increasing the number of people we can have at extracurricular activities such as Christmas concerts, sporting events, FBLA & FFA functions, etc. The guidance we received yesterday afternoon from the Colorado Department of Education also bases the number of students we can have on campus by the Stay at Home, Safer at Home, or Protect Neighbor status as well. This afternoon we had the opportunity to sit in on a Zoom meeting with Katy Anthes (Commissioner of Education) at 1 pm where I hoped to glean a better understanding of how these parameters were established and if there was any consideration given to small districts with low levels of positive cases in their counties. I am still waiting for that answer. In order for Washington County to be approved for and stay in the Protect Your Neighbor status, we need to have fewer than 2 new positive COVID-19 cases per week AND we must test 7.3% of our population. As you know, the information and guidelines around this virus changes by the day if not minute. I will do my best to keep information coming in a timely manner.
You should have received a preliminary class schedule if you are junior high and/or high school parent. High school parents with students who are taking MCC classes should have had the opportunity to register for fall as well. We will be sharing school registration information soon on our website and in the newspaper. More information and a detailed plan will be released to our communities in the weeks ahead.
Thank you for all your support in past months, the Arickaree Board of Education, administration, and staff deeply appreciate our students, parents and community members.