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Good Morning Rangers,
Over the weekend Governor Inslee announced additional restrictions on business and private gatherings. There are no additional restrictions on K-12 schools or on continuing our in-person blended learning cohorts. Students will continue to attend on their scheduled days for in-person instruction. The decisions to prioritize keeping schools open where possible are based on prioritizing the educational needs of students while at the same time paying attention to data on COVID in schools.
In order for us to keep schools open for in-person learning we will need all families, students, and staff to follow all the state guidance both in and out of school to help stop the spread of COVID-19:
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Do not come to school sick, or if you have been exposed to someone with COVID-19
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Always wear a mask at school and when out in public
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Wash your hands regularly
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Maintain six feet of distance between you and others when outside your house
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Do not have indoor social gatherings with people outside your household
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Limit outdoor gatherings to five people
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Quarantine for 14 days after out of state travel
At school we will be continuing our health and safety measures:
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Wellness screenings and temperature checks
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Masking
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Maintaining physical distancing
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Anyone with symptoms is sent home
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No visitors in the school
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Increased cleaning of surfaces
In addition, we are asking that families call and make an appointment before visiting the school or district office.
Our staff and students have been doing a good job following our health and safety protocols on campus, due to these circumstances we are taking a cautious approach and we are reducing the number of after school sports practices, and indoor practices are canceled, per Gov. Inslee’s order. We will determine when these activities can safely resume based on community transmission data.
The school district will be asking all families and staff to follow the travel advisory issued on Friday. If students or staff travel out of state, they will need to practice self-quarantine for 14 days after returning home before coming back to their school. Students will participate in distance learning during this time.
We continue to closely monitor the spread of COVID-19 in Jefferson County and work closely with Jefferson County Public Health to make decisions about maintaining in-person cohorts. Knowing that closing in-person learning will have a large impact on students and families, we plan to keep our in-person cohorts open as long as we continue to be advised it is safe to do so.
If your family is experiencing additional challenges or financial hardship please reach out to your teacher or the school office. We are able to connect families with resources in the community to provide assistance with food, housing, financial assistance, mental health care, and internet connectivity. There are also many community resources linked on this local page: https://l2020.org/covid-19/
Thank you, stay healthy and safe,
Frank Redmon
Contact Information
District Office 360-765-2900
School Office 360-765-3363
We have decided to scale back our practices a bit due to the rising cases of COVID-19, so we have cancelled all late practices (4:45 to 6:15).
Practice on Monday 11/16/20 will be boys basketball right after school. Boys will also practice Thursday 11/19/20 after school.
Girls basketball will practice after school on Tuesday 11/17/20 and Friday 11/20/20.
The only change is there will be no late practice.
Next week (11.16-11.20) we will again be in Step 4 of our reopening plan.
For a detailed explanation of this along with an overview of items covered during Monday evening's Virtual Open House, please view the following video:
https://drive.google.com/file/
We will be making a few adjustments to our hybrid plan after Thanksgiving Break, including changing which high school students are in which cohorts. A letter from Mr. Redmon explaining these changes in details can be viewed using the following link: https://www.qsd48.org/
Lastly, county COVID-19 cases have been increasing recently. Please remember to wear masks, practice social distancing, and wash your hands frequently.
Thank you,
Mr. Moss
Quilcene School District's Special Education department is seeking to strengthen family and community partnerships by creating a Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SEPAC). SEPACs are a parent led committee that provides input to the district to help shape programs and policies to better meet the needs of students with disabilities.
For further information, please contact the Director of Special Services, Brianne Barrett at bbarrett@qsd48.org.
We are excited to launch Buswhere, a location tracking service for all our bus routes. Buswhere is an app which allows you to see the location of your child's bus in real time on your phone and to receive notification when the bus is approaching your bus stop. Buswhere allows you to download a free Android or iOS app to track the bus and view ETAs at any stop along the route.
If your child rides a bus to school, you should have received an email yesterday from Buswhere with information on how to register to secure your account. During registration, you are automatically assigned to the closest stop (you can edit that at any time) and will receive a notification when the bus is getting close to your stop.
If you did not receive the email from Buswhere please contact our Transportation Supervisor Lee Ann Maki-Van Berkom at lmaki@qsd48.org or 360-765-2904 in order to get setup with access.
Access is secured with a login and controlled centrally by Transportation Supervisor to make sure only authorized parties can view the bus’s location.
Hello Rangers!
Last night the school board approved the recommended changes to the reopening plan that the Reopening Team put forward. These changes will take effect the Monday after the Thanksgiving break. For next week (Nov 9-13), we will stay in Step 4, and I will send another update next week as well.
Dr. Locke did not have many updates in our conversation this week; we have reached something of a plateau in Jefferson County. We are starting to see an uptick in the number of cases in the county, Dr. Locke says that these are still coming from out of the county and there still is no evidence of community spread. He also related data about outbreaks in schools. There have been 46 as of Tuesday across the state. These are called "outbreaks" when two or more people test positive for COVID in the school but are not considered to be close contacts with each other. In all of the 46 instances, contact tracing shows that the infections happened when the infected person was not in school. When there are positive cases in schools, they don't spread through the school, and the origination is from outside of the school. This is more evidence that schools are safe and healthy places for students and staff, particularly when we adhere to the safety protocols built into our reopening plan.
To ensure that you are aware of the coming changes to our learning plan, this is what the board approved last night, to start on Monday, November 30th:
- School will start 10 minutes later than our current start time. Buses will pick up students 10 minutes later than we have been, and arrive at school at 8:20 instead of 8:10. If you are bringing your students to school, please do not arrive before 8:20 - we will begin the health screenings at that time.
- Kindergarten will add another day to their week; Starting Monday, November 30th they will come to school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday
- Grades 1-5 continue in-person learning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Over time, we will add more grade levels to a four-day-per-week schedule as we are able.
- Grades 6-12: Each grade split into cohorts “A” and “B”. Cohort A at school on Monday and Tuesday, cohort B in school on Thursday and Friday. Cohorts will be reorganized to ensure equity. The new groups will be determined in the next week or so - you should hear from your child's teacher or the school office of any changes for your child.
- This new plan will be our default learning modality, unless or until Jefferson County Risk Level reaches “high” (>75 cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks) - per DOH guidelines.
- Other factors that may cause us to move to a more remote learning mode: Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) recommends a change, evidence of community transmission in Quilcene, testing positivity rate > 2%, or high-risk levels in Kitsap or Clallam counties.
- If conditions warrant, and in cooperation with JCPH, Quilcene will return to remote learning until the risk reduces to the moderate level.
I use a couple of sources to check on the number of cases in our county - the WA Risk assessment dashboard, and the JCPH Facebook page.
As always, if you have any questions about these changes, or how we are keeping students and staff safe and healthy at school, or anything else school-related please do not hesitate to contact me!
Thank you for all that you do to support our students and staff!
Frank Redmon
Superintendent
Practices for all extracurricular athletics began on Monday, Oct 12th after school, and will last 6 weeks. All students in grades 6-12 are invited, with coaches following Washington State Department of Health guidelines for restarting activities. See the linked schedules for days and times for all sports we offer.
