Krystal Hybrid Parent Info - English
Krystal Hybrid Parent Info - Spanish
District COVID-19 Updates (HUSD COVID Planning Guide, Childcare, Community Resources)
This message is from Dave Olney, Superintendent of the Hesperia Unified School District.
Today, in San Bernardino County, we had our fifth consecutive day of new COVID cases being below 25 per 100,000 in the population. That allows us to reopen elementary schools in a hybrid format as we were planning to do last November.
The District, in agreement with our employee associations, has provided a two-week notice so that our schools can prepare for students to return.
Primary students in transitional kindergarten through third grade are scheduled to return the week of March 8 and students in grades 4 through 6 will return the week of March 15. You will receive more information regarding your students’ schedule from your school site.
It is important to note that, in the meantime, if cases rise above 25, the California Department of Public Health requires us to pause our reopening, but the good news is that cases have steadily come down over the past few weeks and hopefully that will continue.
All required safety protocols will be in place and you can see our reopening and safety plans on our website. Distance Learning will still be an option for those families who prefer.
In order to reopen our middle and high schools, new cases must go below 7 and sustain that for a two-week period. I will keep you informed of our progress. Thank you again for your patience and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
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Spanish Translation:
MENSAJE DE LA OFICINA DEL SUPERINTENDENTE 19 de febrero de 2021
Este mensaje es de Dave Olney, superintendente del Distrito escolar unificado de Hesperia.
Hoy, en el condado de San Bernardino, tuvimos nuestro quinto día consecutivo de casos nuevos del virus COVID por debajo de 25 por cada 100,000 habitantes. Esto nos permite reabrir las escuelas primarias bajo un formato híbrido, como estábamos planeando hacerlo el pasado noviembre.
En conformidad con nuestras asociaciones de empleados, el distrito ha brindado un aviso de dos semanas para que nuestras escuelas puedan prepararse para el regreso de los estudiantes.
Está programado que los alumnos de primaria de kínder de transición a tercer año regresen la semana del 8 de marzo; y los alumnos de cuarto a sexto año regresarán la semana del 15 de marzo. Recibirán más información sobre el horario de sus hijos por parte de su escuela.
Es importante tener en cuenta que, mientras tanto, si los casos aumentan por encima de los 25 por día, el Departamento de salud pública de California requerirá que pongamos en pausa nuestra reapertura, pero la buena noticia es que los casos han disminuido de manera constante durante las últimas semanas y esperemos que así continúe.
Seguiremos todos los protocolos de seguridad requeridos, y puede consultar nuestros planes de reapertura y seguridad en nuestro sitio de internet. El modelo de aprendizaje a distancia continuará siendo una opción para aquellas familias que así lo prefieran.
Para reabrir nuestras secundarias y preparatorias, la cantidad de casos nuevos debe estar por debajo de los 7 por día y mantenerse así durante un período de dos semanas. Los mantendré informados sobre nuestro progreso. Una vez más, gracias por su paciencia y espero que todos tengan un fin de semana maravilloso.
Before the Thanksgiving break, I shared with you that we were postponing the partial reopening of our elementary schools and let you know that I would be reaching out again before the winter break. Since March, our staff and I have been tracking COVID data in the county and our community, coordinating with the department of public health and the California Department of Education, monitoring local hospital impact, and following our own employees being placed on leave due to COVID. In the meantime, following CDC and the Department of Public Health guidelines, we have implemented safety protocols that exceed the requirements placed upon us by those organizations. We are taking every measure we can to be prepared when we open our schools.
That said, since my last communication, the number of new COVID cases has increased significantly in our community, frequently being above 100 new cases a day in Hesperia Unified School District’s boundaries alone. Many staff members have tested positive and/or have been placed on COVID leave, and we know many members of our community have been affected. Our local hospitals are all impacted greatly, much worse than what they experienced in July. This all impacts our ability to effectively and safely reopen schools.
To that end, we are shifting our target for our hybrid elementary opening from the second week of January to the beginning of February. That will allow us to assess the numbers when we return from break, monitor the impact of the holidays, and give our schools at least two weeks to prepare for students to return. At this time, I have to say that the beginning of February may be overly optimistic, considering the current COVID situation. However, while it may be easier to target a later date, I remain committed to bringing back our students as soon as we are safely able to do so. I will continue to provide you with updates on our current situation.
Thank you again for your patience and support. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and I wish you good health.
Good morning, this is Dave Olney, Superintendent for the Hesperia Unified School District. Two weeks ago I shared that the Public Health Department approved our district’s elementary school waiver, meaning that we are able to bring back elementary students, Transitional Kindergarten through 6th grade, following the Department of Public Health and CDC guidelines. In order to meet those guidelines, we are only able to accommodate approximately fifty percent of our students in class at any one time. In addition, we will continue to offer distance learning for those families who would prefer to stay in distance learning while we remain under the restrictions of the pandemic.
To meet the in-school guidelines, we will be identifying students as group A, B, or C, with group C remaining in distance learning five days a week. Group A will be attending in-class instruction on Mondays and Thursdays, and receiving on-line instruction Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Group B will be attending in-class instruction on Tuesdays and Fridays, and receiving on-line instruction on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We will make every effort to place family members in the same group. In-Class instruction will be for three and a half hours, with start times the same as normal according to your school. This will allow teachers to provide intensive in-person instruction to smaller groups of students during the first part of the day and connect with students at home in the afternoon.
We will begin this model of learning for TK through 3rd grade on November 30, following the Thanksgiving break; grades 4 through 6 will begin the following week on December 7. You will receive more information from your school site.
The Department of Public Health requires all students to wear face masks, though students in TK through grade 2 may wear face shields in lieu of a mask. Face masks and shields will be offered to students, though they may wear their own, and hand sanitizer will be provided throughout the school site. We will also limit the sharing of materials, provide cleaning of high touch points throughout the day, and deep clean and sanitize every evening. Your school offices may close briefly throughout the day for sanitization.
We ask parents to be diligent that if their child has any cold or flu symptoms, that the student remain at home. Please reinforce the importance of hand-washing and using hand sanitizer. We will be administering regular health screenings, temperature checks, and we will be offering regular COVID testing for staff and are working to offer testing for families.
Bus transportation will be provided, though we will not be filling buses to capacity and students will be required to wear face masks on the bus. Meals will continue to be provided in a “grab and go format,” including for those students who are at school. Those students at school will be provided their meals to take home with them. Group C students and those students not at school on a particular day will still be able to go to a school location to pick up meals, though those locations will now only be at Ranchero Middle School, Hesperia High School, Hesperia Junior High School, and Cedar Middle School; the hours for meal pick-up will remain 11:00am to noon.
Many parents have asked about secondary schools. While we can’t wait to have our junior high, middle school, and high school students return, we are not allowed to reopen secondary sites until San Bernardino County is in the red tier for at least two weeks; at this time, the county is still in the purple. You will be able to find more information on our district website at www.hesperiausd.org.
I would like to again thank you all for your patience and support. I would also like to thank our teachers, our classified employees, our administrators, First Student bus services, the Hesperia Teachers Association, and our local CSEA for their support. We are all in this together. Have a wonderful afternoon and a great weekend.
This message is from Dave Olney, Superintendent of the Hesperia Unified School District.
We are excited to announce that on October 20th, our district received notice that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has approved our elementary waiver which allows our TK-6th grade students to attend school in person with their teacher at their school sites, following specific guidelines set forth by the CDPH and our local health department. We are committed to partnering with our families and community to make the best possible learning experiences while still keeping students, families, and staff safe and healthy.
Families will have the option of either remaining in distance learning or sending their children back to school in a hybrid learning model, which would be a combination of in-person instruction on the school site and distance learning. In order to maintain social distancing, the students returning will be divided into groups, with one group being on-site at a time and in distance learning on the other days. Those remaining in distance learning will continue with learning from home five days a week. We will provide you with more details as the time to begin comes closer. In the meantime, we will be working with our employee associations, transportation, nutrition services, and all of our other departments to prepare for all of the logistics of our elementary students’ return to their school site.
Since the last time I communicated to you, the county’s new cases of COVID, unfortunately, have risen and San Bernardino County has not moved out of the purple tier. So, while we were approved for the elementary waiver, our secondary schools will have to remain in distance learning for the time being.
Our families with elementary students will be receiving a questionnaire from their school site this week asking which learning option, hybrid or continued distance learning, will be best for their children. When the questionnaires are received, the students will be assigned to a group and parents will be notified.
Again, we will provide more details soon as to when our elementary students will be able to return. In the meantime, thank you for all of your support.
This message is from Dave Olney, Superintendent of the Hesperia Unified School District.
Tonight, I get the opportunity to share a little bit of good news. Over the past few weeks, we have actually seen a decrease in the number of new cases of COVID, both in Hesperia and San Bernardino County.
While the county is still considered by the state to be at the purple level and it will not allow us to reopen our schools, we are in the process of developing an elementary waiver to submit to the state. If the state approves our waiver, we will be able to bring our elementary students back in smaller groups, meaning that about half of our students would come to school at any one time. If the county numbers continue to improve, we could also see secondary schools being allowed to partially reopen as well in the not too distant future.
To prepare for students returning, we are increasing our sanitization and safety protocols, as well as investigating various methods for additional safeguards. In the meantime, our schools are working on ways to better support our students while we are in distance learning. Thank you to those who participated in our distance learning survey.
We continue to seek ways to help our students learn during this challenging time and, as there are new but strict guidelines for providing small group intervention, this may include bringing small groups of students in for short tutorial sessions. This will not replace the distance learning, as we are not yet allowed to do that, but we want to provide as much support as possible.
Please remember, on our website at www.hesperiausd.org, we have many supports, including counseling supports, for those who need it. As a father, I understand how frustrating this time has been and, as an educator, I want to get our students back to the physical school sites as quickly as we are safely able to do so.
Thank you for your support and understanding, and I also want to thank our teachers and staff, I don’t think anyone ever expected to have to deal with a global pandemic, or to be forced into working in the manner in which we have. But as I listen to my colleagues across the state, I don’t think anyone has stepped up to this challenge better than Hesperia Unified. Even though distance learning will never replace having our students in school, I’m proud of the work our staff, our students, and our families have done to support learning.
I hope to be able to report more good news to you very soon. Have a good night.