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From the Desk of Dr. Halley: Back to School Plans

By Halley, Heath on July 15, 2020

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Let me be the first to welcome you and your family to the 2020-2021 school year! We are excited for the return of students to our district. I believe the adage that it takes a village to raise a child is appropriate. We are looking forward to resuming our role in the development and advancement of our students.

I wanted to take a moment of your time to outline some of the changes you can expect upon the return of your child to Putnam County R-I. Our intent is to return with a 5 day a week schedule. To do that it will require that we all make adjustments and work together for that goal. As you will see many of those changes are attempting to keep large groups from congregating. Our attempts may be futile, but worth the effort in our opinion.

In March of 2020 schools across Missouri and our Nation began closing due to the “SARS-CoV-2” or now more commonly known as COVID-19/Coronavirus. We have endured school closures, social distancing recommendations, stay at home orders, quarantines, wear a face mask, don’t wear a face mask, and have missed many opportunities and milestones within our families, our school, and our communities. We have learned a great deal regarding Covid-19 since the beginning of 2020. Initially, there was shock, fear, and even confusion. We have been blessed and extremely fortunate in Putnam County, to date, we have had only 3 identified Covid-19 cases.

We are preparing for our return to school on Monday, August 24, 2020. Our intention is to make our return to school as “normal as possible” while making our return as safe as possible for our students, staff, and our Putnam County family. Please realize that “normal” won’t be exactly like what we left in March. We have and continue to be as educated as possible regarding any and all Covid-19 information. We routinely review data and information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP); Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA); Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (MDHSS); and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to list a few. These organizations have provided hundreds of pages and recommended suggested changes.

We have and will continue to work closely with our Putnam County Health Department and our local medical professionals to evaluate the health of our community and that of our region so that we may continue to make educated decisions regarding our school district. Our first priority is to keep everyone healthy and safe. To do that we must rely on you as parents to do your best not to send your child to school if they are sick with any of the following Covid-19 symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, fever, chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, or a new loss of taste or smell. Prior to school starting, you will receive from Putnam County R-I, an at-home “health” screening recommendation that we anticipate each family will complete prior to sending your child or children to school each day. In hopes of not sounding rude or hurting feelings, the practice of “dosing” children with medicine and sending them to school sick must be discontinued if we want to keep our school open.

If your child/children ride a school bus we will be assigning seats from the very beginning as this will assist the health department in contact tracing if an outbreak occurs. Busses will be loaded from back to front and siblings will be required to sit together. We also will be slightly adjusting our drop off procedures. We will have 3 drop off points to limit student exposure to students in different buildings. For example, 3 busses will unload at the elementary entrance, 3 at the MS entrance, and 3 at the HS south commons entrance. Then each set of busses will move to the next location so that all nine will unload at each location. At the end of the day, we will dismiss all bus riders 5 minutes early and will have busses located at the west entrance like normal. Walkers, car riders or car drivers will then be dismissed, again to limit cross-building exposure as best possible. In our best effort to reduce large gatherings of students the building exterior doors will remain locked until 8:00 am. Upon arriving at the building at 8:00 am we will be requiring elementary students to report to their classroom for breakfast in a classroom. At that time, we will be asking our staff to take student temperatures to assist our nurse in identifying possible sick children. MS/HS will go to their classrooms at 8:05 am and follow the procedures as described above.

To meet the additional needs of Covid-19 and attempting to keep everyone safe, we have moved the school nurses’ station to where the elementary school principal’s office has been located. This provides us 3 spaces so that we can keep the nurse’s station open while having a location for sick individuals to remain isolated until transportation can be arranged.

It will be imperative that each family has an effective method of transportation for their child if they become sick while at school As of today, we will NOT be requiring students nor staff to wear masks. They are recommended to wear, but that will be a personal family decision.

We will have recess! We will schedule the time and require hand washing prior to recess and upon returning from recess.

In all grade levels, we will be requiring water bottles. The drinking portion of the fountains will be inoperable as it is a key location for spreading germs. Please, send the bottle filled each day as that will help reduce an area of congestion. In all classrooms, we are asking teachers to provide for as much distance as possible. A key component of staying healthy is hand washing, we will have a variety of staff members offering instruction on hand washing to each student at least weekly.

Lunch, in the elementary school, will be as usual in the elementary gym. We are purchasing extra tables which will allow for class separation. Unfortunately, the salad bar in the elementary will not be permitted. Middle school students will sit with their class during lunch in the HS commons. We have extended the HS & MS lunch period by 34 minutes in order to reduce the number of students in the HS commons during lunch at one time. The time has been added by moving the activity period from the end of the day back to the 5th period and having middle and high school student activity period at opposite ends of the period.

We have invested heavily in our maintenance department to offer them the opportunity to be as effective and efficient as possible. However, the endeavor to keep our building clean and everyone healthy will require everyone’s assistance. An example of this will be that our transportation department will be sanitizing our busses after each route. Our coaches will also be tasked with cleaning the equipment their student athletes use on a daily basis.

What I have shared is not an all-inclusive list. Nor is it perfect. It is possible the information will be outdated by the time of this article being published and most definitely will have components that will change prior to school starting. I have provided what I believe to be the most impactful adjustments we are considering. If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns please feel free to contact me or any of our school principals.

Sincerely,

Dr. Heath Halley Ed.D.