Start of School Year 20-21

Dear Ada-Borup Families: 

 We have gotten the school year off to a great start! Our students have done a tremendous job of adhering to the new rules and health guidelines put in place. Our staff members have adjusted very well to new roles and duties this year brings. As we continue forward with the 2020-2021 school year, we wanted to share some additional information about how our district will make decisions regarding our learning models throughout the school year.

Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 bi-weekly case rate shared on the Minnesota Department of Health Dashboard, (https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/index.html), and Governor Walz’s (https://mn.gov/covid19/assets/safe-learning-plan_tcm1148-442202.pdf) plan regarding our school learning models.   Please understand that these are starting points intended to guide and steer our discussions and thinking.  

In reality, determinations in our district will be made based on data points to ensure our decisions are data-driven.  We will use local, regional and statewide data which will be sorted by age, demographics, population, zip codes, etc.  We will consider local differences such as social distancing and masking habits, student attendance and illness numbers, building and space capacities, facilities, and other local disparities.  We will use our local decision teams, local public health, our regional support team facilitated by the Northwest Service Cooperative including two epidemiologists, and a COVID testing coordinator appointed by the Minnesota Department of Health.  These data points and teams will help our school administrators and School Board make a local determination to monitor, adapt and adjust our learning plans as needed throughout the school year.  In the end, our primary goal is to keep our students, staff and community safe.  Our other goal, of course, is to continue to deliver a world-class education. 

In the event the school district needs to switch between learning models our goal is to give 7 days notice to families, students and staff. This will allow everyone ample time to prepare for the new learning model. There may be times where we are unable to provide advanced notice and need to switch in a matter of 1-2 days. An example of this would be if there were a large outbreak in the school or if a large number of students or staff were forced into quarantine.

To help deliver a high level of eduation and ensure the safety of all of our students and staff, we are asking  parents to complete a daily health evaluation of their students.  If your child answers yes to any of the screening questions, they should remain home and you should notify the school. A link to the screening can be found here: https://5il.co/kw25.

The school district will be complying with the Minnesota Department of health Decision Tree, (https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/schools/exguide.pdf) in determing if students or staff can remain in the building. There are various ways a person can be placed in quarantine and if this happens to your family, the school will be sending home additional resources. If we have a positive COVID-19 case in our building, parents will be notified that a person who has tested positive was on campus, but will receive no further information. If your student was a close contact of the positive individual, the school will contact you directly with more information.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out.

Sincerely,

 

Aaron Cook

Superintendent