Communicating to Families If We Need to Transition From In-Person Learning Back to Virtual Learning
Once the District transitions to in-person learning, every effort will be made to keep the schools open. However, there may be a need to transition a classroom, grade level, school, or even the entire district back to virtual learning for a period of time based on the various factors shared above. To ensure a clear and effective transition to virtual learning when/if needed, the Greenfield Health Department and the Greenfield School District have identified the following benchmarks to signal the need to return to virtual learning. These benchmarks have been developed in conjunction with the resources from the Greenfield Health Department, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). They are designed to ensure a swift and appropriate response to the spread of COVID in our schools.
The benchmarks are as follows:
- Staff and/or student attendance is significantly impacted due to the number of COVID positive cases and/or quarantine orders in a specific classroom, grade level, school, or the entire district.
- A significant community outbreak is occurring or has recently occurred, and is impacting multiple staff, students, families, as well as the Greenfield Community.
- Staff absences and substitute availability reach a level that has the potential to compromise the safety or continuity of the learning environment.
- Contact tracing and notification of close contacts in the school setting cannot be completed within 24-36 hours of notification of positive cases.
When school district and local health officials determine one or more of the benchmarks above are met, the affected population (classroom, grade level, school, or district) will transition from in-person learning back to the virtual setting. If/When we are faced with this scenario, the transition will include the following:
- An announcement of the transition back to virtual learning to parents via e-mail, Living Tree, and/or phone message.
- Upon the announcement of the transition back to virtual learning, there will be no real-time (synchronous) instruction on the next scheduled school day. For that first transition day back to virtual learning, teachers will upload learning activities into Google Classroom [See Saw] for students to work through independently.
- On the second scheduled school day, students will return to the virtual learning schedules they had been following in September.
- Virtual learning will continue for 14-calendar days following the transition. As the end of the 14-calendar days approaches, a joint decision by the Greenfield Health Department and the School District will be made regarding whether to continue in the virtual setting or transition to the in-person environment.
Things change very quickly as a result of the disease, and it is important to note that the decision to transition from in-person learning to virtual learning may occur overnight or within a 24-hour period of time. The District will communicate to families the need to develop a back-up plan for their household prior to the potential of their child needing to isolate due to illness, quarantine due to being a close contact or their child’s classroom, grade level, school or the entire District must return to virtual learning for 14 calendar days (or longer) due to COVID-19.
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