JANUARY 7, 2022
Franklin District Bi-Weekly Newsletter | 2021-22 #10
Returning To School
It has been a busy but very good week at FPS. Our staff and families continue to work together to keep our schools open for in-person learning. Thank you! I am glad to say that we have kept our doors open to over 4500 students this week. In the last almost two years, we have learned a lot about COVID-19, which is helping us manage this Omicron surge. We know how to better handle mitigation strategies in ways that allow us to keep our staff and students in person for learning. “We” includes the medical professionals we work with, including those at Children’s Hospital who provide us with regular updates.
It is very likely that we will experience higher absence rates in the next two weeks. Therefore, our nursing team will continue to prioritize working with symptomatic and positive COVID-19 students and their families. In addition, we will continue to host on-site testing and quarantine students who are household contacts. Below you will find information about some changes to our on-site testing to improve our efficiency. This also includes information about what you can expect as a parent if the school contacts you if your child is symptomatic.
As communicated in the January 3, 2022 message to families, the manner in which we are working through this current surge of COVID-19 cases is based on what we have learned and our commitment to being flexible and responsive. We will make the decision to move to virtual or remain in-person carefully, considering both the welfare of our staff and students and our ability to deliver instruction effectively. No single metric or threshold will be utilized for this decision due to the many variables involved in pivoting. We will pivot classrooms, grade levels, or a building to virtual learning by tracking multiple factors at a classroom level to the best extent possible for grades 4K-12. This analysis is being done in collaboration with the Franklin Health Department. If a class, grade level, or school pivots, our teachers will provide instruction virtually to the students during the regular school day hours. The ability to staff our classrooms will also be a consideration in whether we pivot a school.
In examining our data and consulting with our Medical Advisory Team, we know that being in school helps our families and is what is best for our students. We know that our secondary spread, as determined through contact tracing and quarantine protocols during September 1st - December 15th, was low, (2.7%). When our students return to school, we know they are doing well, and we know that our parents have played an essential role in helping us to remain in-person for learning.
Currently, masks are required at all grade levels 4K-12. Required masking was added for grades 7-12 through next Friday, January 14th. Following next Friday, we will assess if case rates are increasing or declining and share information with 7-12 parents about mask requirements before we return to school on Tuesday, January 18th (please remember there is no school on Monday, January 17th).
Finally, we have published new data that provides each school's total number of student positive COVID-19 cases. This week’s information represents the number of students who tested positive as of 12/31 while on winter break, and the students who tested positive this week while attending school. Looking at the data in this way will help us better understand the cases that directly impact our schools versus the ones reported over break when children were not in school. You will find this information further down in the newsletter.
Prior to the Omicron surge, the Board of Education planned to discuss the COVID-19 data from the first semester and the potential of relaxing some of our COVID-19 protocols at next week’s January 12th meeting. The Board of Education is now scheduled to have a discussion of COVID-19 at its January 26th meeting.
In closing, I would like to thank our families for informing us when their children have symptoms of COVID-19, and for either allowing us to test them or taking them to be tested. The more information about who may be unwell, the better we are at mitigating the spread. Likewise, we are considering all the best ways to keep you informed of exposures in our schools as we work through this Omicron surge.
Thank you and have a great weekend.
Dr. Judy Mueller
District Administrator
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
As a reminder, the District Calendar and all building calendars can be found here.
All of our calendars are able to be subscribed to! Follow the steps at the top of the District Calendar for how to subscribe. You will also see our 2021-22 AND 2022-23 Calendar Events in your own calendar app on your device!
COVID-19 UPDATES
Over the last few weeks, we shared with you that we began to offer a “Test to Stay” (TTS) partnership with Summit Clinical Labs within our buildings. TTS allowed us to test close contacts in order to rule out COVID-19 related illnesses so students could remain in person for learning. The Test To Stay program is adjusting to become an On-Site Testing opportunity for students, staff, and family/household members of positive student or staff cases or anyone deemed a close contact. We will continue to have On-Site Testing at Franklin High School during weekdays from 7am to 3pm through our health office located there.
What’s new is that we will now be offering an On-Site Testing center at our ECC District Office boardroom area from 7am to 3pm weekdays as well. If your child is symptomatic at school and you are contacted, you may pick your child up and you have the option to take them to the ECC District Office On-Site Testing center for testing. Please review this document for other details and questions you may have about how this will work. Testing is another mitigation strategy to help us reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our schools.
ATHLETICS/ACTIVITIES & EVENTS
Currently, with the large number of COVID-19 cases we are experiencing amongst our students and families, we are requiring masks of all individuals at any of the indoor activities or events taking place in our buildings. Athletes and performers may remove their mask when participating/performing. There may be other mitigation measures in place depending on the event or activity and those will be shared or posted by the leader or organizer of the event. Thank you for your patience as we continue to do our best to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within our buildings.
DASHBOARD
Before and during the break, we reported on the December 24th and December 31st dashboards that cases were starting to rise. Fortunately, we were out of school from December 23rd through January 2nd. During that time, we continued to receive positive case notifications from the Franklin Health Department of students that had tested positive.
Beginning January 3rd, as students returned to school, we continued to receive more positive cases from the winter break. In an effort to be aware of how COVID-19 is directly impacting our schools, the numbers below represent the positive cases during winter break on December 31st and the positive student cases that were in our schools this week that possibly had contact with others.
In total, as of the end of the day Thursday, January 6th, there were 141 students who are positive for COVID-19 as a result of testing positive during winter break or during this week while in school. However, as reflected in our new dashboard, of the 141 total cases, only 61 of them were in contact with others this week in our schools. In addition, a number of the students who were positive during winter break have now returned to school this week or will early next week.
Click for a larger image if needed
Note: As our website woes (more below) wrap up, this will now live on the FPS Communication Hub at www.franklin.k12.wi.us/coms
VACCINE INFORMATION
Evidence shows that being vaccinated (and boosted) has helped to decrease the chances of getting the severity and symptoms one will experience with COVID-19 and the risk of spreading it to others. For more background information on vaccines, you can review this information from the CDC.
If your family is choosing to explore options for vaccination, please refer to https://www.vaccines.gov/ which provides information on the various vaccines, boosters, and locations for vaccines. Vaccination is one of the mitigation measures that helps us to remain in-person for school.
WEBSITE WOES
As shared earlier this week, our district website at www.franklin.k12.wi.us has been experiencing issues. If you’ve tried to access any of our web pages, sometimes the pages are loading and sometimes you may experience an “oops” or “error” page. Our website vendor is continuing to work on restoring our website to full functionality. We are not alone in having these issues as anyone who uses the same vendor has been experiencing issues. In the meantime, here are some helpful links in case you need to access these services or links directly:
FPS Lunch Menus - click to view all menus and then pick your school
Snow/Cold Days Planning
As we move through the winter months, we want to share with you how the district plans to handle Snow or Cold Weather days this school year. We will treat Snow/Cold Days as we have in the past in that a “No School Day” would be issued for all students in both in-person and virtual learning models. The state of Wisconsin requires a minimum number of instructional hours during the school year and our current school calendar has built-in time to accommodate some of the time we might need to make up in the event of any Snow/Cold Days.
It may become necessary at the high school level to utilize professional development time as instructional time if we are unable to achieve the necessary number of minutes given repeated school closures. This would not be necessary at the elementary or middle levels as there is more time built into their instructional day and the requirements are different. In addition, please remember that our current 21-22 school calendar has a “4K-12 Conditional No School Day” on Friday, May 27th (the Friday before Memorial Day). This is currently a “No School Day.” In the event we have time to make up due to Snow/Cold Days at all levels, Friday, May 27th would become a regular school day so we can meet the minimum number of instructional hours needed for the year. If this occurs, we will communicate this to families as we approach May. Ultimately, if there were multiple school closures due to weather and we have exhausted both of the options listed above, it may be necessary for all levels to add additional days at the end of the school year. We will communicate any changes by early April so families and staff can know how to best plan.
When inclement weather is approaching, we work to make a school closure determination and communicate this to families by 6 am at the latest. The following are the ways we communicate the closing and where you can expect to see information:
Parents and Staff will be sent an email and phone call alert.
Students will be sent an email at their @franklinsabers.org account (4K, 5K, & up through 12th grade)
Closing information will be posted to our district and school webpages (in the “News” feeds).
Closing information will be posted to our district social media channels (be sure to like or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if you don’t already!).
Closing information will be shared with local media so that our information is included in the weather updates that occur on local news.
Staff note: In some circumstances, there may be situations where district staff are required to or asked to report to the buildings and this would be communicated from a direct supervisor or through our internal email.
REGISTRATION FOR 22-23 IS NOW OPEN FOR NEW FAMILIES!
Our registration is now open for next school year for new families to the district and next year’s 4K. You can find all the necessary details on our website here. Please note that students already enrolled in our schools do not have to have a new registration completed. You may utilize the “Create Account” and “Forgot Password” buttons on the registration page to complete your registration or gain access if you have created an account in the past. Please help us share that registration is open with any new families to the area or those with younger children that would be entering 4K or 5K!
NEXT DISTRICT NEWSLETTER?
Our next district newsletter will come to you next Friday, January 14th.
Franklin Public Schools
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Email: communications@franklin.k12.wi.us
Website: http://www.franklin.k12.wi.us
Location: 8255 West Forest Hill Avenue, Franklin, WI, USA
Phone: 414-529-8220
Facebook: facebook.com/franklinpublicschools
Twitter: @fpsdistrictwi
(Note: Any imagery containing students, staff, events, or FPS logos shared by FPS are the property of Franklin Public Schools and are solely for district use. Reproduction or reuse of these images without written permission is not allowed.)