COVID-19 Update
10/12/20 From Superintendent Bahr
Rainier School District Staff, Families and Community:
Thank you families and staff as we navigate into our second successful week of the Hybrid Model at the elementary level!
Thank you for having grace with us as we implement the safety and health measures for your child’s safety and health, as well as our school staff. We have stated that during the 2020-2021 school year that we will need to make sure that we are working closely with state and local health guidelines and will remain committed to aligning our system to the current health considerations. I meet every week with the Thurston County Health Department staff and Dr. Abdelmalek to ask questions and review data.
In an effort to give our community as much notice as possible, I would like to make you aware of the current situation in Thurston County as of yesterday. Thurston County has seen an uptick in Covid-19 cases over the last two weeks. If this uptick continues, the Rainier School District may be forced to return to remote learning for our K-12 students as per the health department. As of yesterday, the county’s case rate per 100,000 was at 45.1 over the past 14 days. According to the Washington State Department of Health Decision tree Thurston County is still in the Moderate level.
In order for our community, as a whole to plan accordingly, I remain committed to providing you with as much information as possible and in a timely manner. At this time, we will continue with in-person learning for all K-2 students and update our families and staff members as we move forward. Preschool will open as stated on Tuesday, October 13th, and small groups of students previously identified will be able to attend as per the plan for Hybrid.
The TCPHSS has notified us of a positive COVID-19 test result within our district. Through contract tracing investigation, TCPHSS determined no additional testing was necessary for any other employee or student. The school district has followed the CDC cleaning protocol for COVID-19 and will continue to follow all FERPA laws to keep this matter private.