12-1-2020
Northwestern Family,
This is a note to clarify the text alerts and in-person Vs online learning for Northwestern students. Northwestern is remaining online K-12 through Fri,12/11. Our preschools will be in-person.
We are doing our very best to keep our children in the school setting, but the COVID spread and related quarantining has made this unfeasible. These cases combined with the inability to obtain sufficient substitutes has left us with this decision. We also are limited by the number of students in a class per Health Dept. guidelines and safety protocol, which limits our options of educating and supervising our students’ safely.
We currently have 13 staff out and through the end of this week – also, at least 11 are out all of next week through the 11th. These are numbers that we know - and from what we have seen over the past week these numbers WILL increase above this. Every day we hear of more staff being tested and on quarantine. In fact, I received additional information that more than half of our bus drivers are on quarantine. We also consistently hear of more students being placed on quarantine. Know that the spread seems to be occurring throughout the greater community, but it is and has been negatively impacting our staffing as well as our students. Some absences are due to active positive COVID cases and some are the result of quarantining as well. We also have some long-term absences.
I have been contacted by parents requesting time to plan for the remote learning. Handling this day to day cannot be effective. Moving to online learning for the next two days is insufficient. Thus, we decided to extend the online learning through Friday, Dec. 11. We are working to communicate to provide parents, teachers, and students as much notice as possible with the varied changes as well as strive for some level of consistency for students, parents, child care, and teachers. We take seriously the educational needs of our children as well as their safety. Blessings to everyone this holiday season and together we will continue moving forward as a community. As of this time we plan to return all students to the classroom in our buildings beginning Dec. 14. If this online learning would be extended to Christmas vacation, we will do everything possible to make an educated decision with sufficient data well-before Dec. 14th. Hopefully by early next week. We will inform you all of any changes.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey N. Layton
Jeffrey N. Layton
Superintendent
Northwestern Local Schools