With Winter Break quickly approaching and COVID cases (or CLOSE CONTACT QUARANTINE cases) on the rise, our hope is that every student, all employees, and every member of your family will be well and out of quarantine for the holiday season. Working toward that end, we are announcing the following significant schedule change.

As you know, our last day of instruction before winter break is December 15. However, we will not hold classes on campus on December 14th or 15th. Instead,

• students in grades 4-12 will be DIGITAL LEARNERS on December 14th and 15th.
• students in grades K-3 will receive enrichment and intervention materials and resources to work on at home.

Each school will provide detailed information to support learning on these two days. With this change, the last day for on-campus classes will be Friday, December 11. Hopefully, these extra days at home and the break to follow will be a welcome respite for everyone.

MCS will discontinue close contact tracing between December 10 and January 4. The Health Department will conduct tracing during winter break.

Digital devices will be sent home with all 4-12 grade students, including day users, during the Thanksgiving and Winter breaks. Students in grades K-3 will not require a device for home use.

Adventure Club will be OPEN on December 14th and 15th.

Again, no ON-CAMPUS classes will be held on December 14th and 15th. Instruction for grades 4-12 will be DIGITAL ONLY during these two days. Elementary teachers will provide specific directions and plans for K-3 students, who will also be at home on December 14th and 15th.

Students in grades 4-12 will return on Tuesday, January 5th as originally planned, but in a STAGGERED SCHEDULE. Students at MHS, MJHS, CGIS, and MRIS will stay on the staggered schedule through Friday, January 8th. Each school will communicate specific details regarding the staggered return schedule, but this information will help.

• Last Names A-K will attend school (in person) on January 5th and 7th.
• Last Names L-Z will attend school (in person) on January 6th and 8th.

Students in grades K-3 will NOT stagger their January schedule but return on January 5th to their assigned instructional model and daily schedule. NO STAGGERING!

We will continue to monitor COVID and attendance data to determine the best instructional model for all students and greatly appreciate your flexibility and understanding as we work to respond to this ever-changing situation.

PARENTS ... Please review!

1. INSTRUCTIONAL CHANGES: Each student in grades K-9 is allowed one instructional delivery change in the school year. (MHS, as a block schedule school, has a provision in place to allow for two changes per year.) The next opportunity to request an instructional change is before noon on December 11th in grades K-9 and November 24 in grades 10-12. Please contact your school to switch from digital back to traditional or from traditional to digital.
2. IMPACTED BY COVID: Following the winter break, parents should notify the school of any positive cases or close contact quarantines during the break. This information will further inform instructional and scheduling plans. PLEASE contact the school by January 4th if your student(s) or family was impacted by COVID during the winter break.

County-wide COVID statistics continue to trend in the wrong direction. Fortunately, our internal data has been much better over the past few days. We currently have 36 active student cases and 12 active staff cases (active means they are serving their 10-day isolation for a positive test). The biggest issue continues to be the number of staff who are absent from onsite instruction due to quarantines. We only have 12 active staff cases but dozens who are close contacts or are home with a young child for COVID-related reasons.

We will continue to respond to changing environments and situations. For instance, recent actions include closing 4th grade at CGIS for a week and shifting all 9th graders to digital learning through Thanksgiving break. We are tracking the data hour-by-hour and will take action as needed to positively affect the safety and health of our school community.

As our school administrators are faced with calling CLOSE CONTACT families, we realize that making a personal call is ideal, but perhaps is not always practical. We wanted to give everyone a heads-up that schools may now use our automated system (SwiftK12) to connect with families regarding close contacts. We feel most families will agree that the efficiency associated with an automated approach is essential at this time and warrants this change in protocol. Keep in mind that calls go out to the phone numbers stored in our student information system, so please make sure your contact information is current, and if you change phone numbers for any reason, please contact your school. Also, be careful never to block the phone number that your school uses for automated calls. Please rest assured, if we send out a Close Contact automated call and your child isn't picked up, we will review your contact information and use every means possible to ensure you receive proper and timely notice.

To help facilitate this change, we have created a Q&A document that addresses many of the questions parents ask about close contacts when they are initially notified. We will maintain a copy of this document on our website for future reference: LINK HERE.