COMMUNITY UPDATE

I am pleased to report that as of the publication of this newsletter, it has been over 24 days since we received a report of a positive student or staff case of COVID-19 in our district. Through the collective effort of our schools and homes, the entire Westwood Regional Schools community has done an amazing job of working together to maintain the continuity of instruction and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. The increased vaccination rates and decrease covid activity throughout the Region, County, and State provide us with a positive view of what's on the horizon for the summer and upcoming school year. We've made it this far through an unrelenting focus on health, safety, and educational continuity. Let's keep it up and finish the year #CardinalStrong.

FACE COVERINGS

The most common question regarding the recent June 8, 2021, Face Covering Update has been, "What is the definition of Extreme Heat?". Unfortunately, the Governor's announcement does not specify a definition of extreme heat. Per the CDC, "Extreme heat is defined as summertime temperatures that are much hotter and/or humid than average."

In practice, we realize that extreme heat may be person and context-specific. For instance, someone who is running around may be impacted by the heat differently than someone who is sedentary. Similarly, the diversity in our schools' architecture and infrastructure may make the outdoor temperatures feel different inside classrooms depending on where they are located in a multi-floor building or if air conditioning is present which mitigates the heat. Therefore, we ask that parents, staff, and students exercise reasonable discretion in consideration of personal and public health. Our school principals will closely monitor the activity in our schools and, if reasonable discretion is not being exercised, they are empowered to make determinations and adjustments necessary to support the public health of their building.

Please reach out to your child's teacher or principal if you have any questions.

SAFE RETURN UPDATE

The Executive Order allowing remote learning will be officially rescinded upon the conclusion of this school year, thus requiring schools to provide full-day in-person instruction once again. Therefore, while we continue to prepare for the close of the current year, we have also been working diligently to plan for the reopening in September.

At the June 17 meeting of the Board of Education, the administration will present an update of our safe return plans for the upcoming school year. Although there are still several outstanding questions, our schools will present what is known at this time and will provide continuous updates over the summer as further guidance is released by the Governor, Department of Education, and Department of Health.