September 17, 2021
WCPS Family:
As we continue to work diligently to keep our students in school, five days a week, I’d like to thank our faculty and staff for their dedication, patience, and flexibility. As a lifelong educator, I’ve never been more proud of a group of faculty and staff. While visiting schools across the district, I have witnessed tremendous efforts by our employees day after day. I can assure you that we are doing everything possible to provide our students with high level instruction and engaging learning opportunities under very difficult circumstances. I’d also like to thank our parents, guardians and greater community for their unwavering support and encouragement throughout the pandemic. It truly does make a difference, especially for our staff who are on the front lines day in and day out helping us navigate a reasonable path forward.
With the recent passage of Senate Bill 1, school districts were required to submit a new and revised COVID-19 Response Plan to the Kentucky Department of Education. Due to the current conditions of COVID-19 cases in our community and the impact on our healthcare system, the WCPS Board of Education voted on September 14, 2021 in a special called meeting to continue implementation of the district-wide mask requirement inside of our school buildings until the end of October at which time, community conditions will be reexamined. Warren County Public Schools will revisit the mask mandate at the end of each month until a set of metrics has been fully developed and vetted by district leadership, as well as local and state health officials. Our district’s updated General COVID-19 Protocol as approved by the Board of Education can be found here.
To briefly summarize the modifications to the quarantine procedures, students within the classroom or bus setting will no longer be required to quarantine if they are properly masked and not demonstrating symptoms, regardless of whether or not they are vaccinated. In all other situations, we will continue to follow our previous quarantine procedures developed by the Kentucky Department of Public Health. We will continue to notify parents/guardians when their son/daughter has been identified as a close contact and parents/guardians have the option to quarantine their child for up to ten days. If the close contact does not quarantine, the parent/guardian will be asked to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 for 14 days following the exposure, and if symptoms develop they would need to quarantine immediately. The student would need to be tested for COVID-19 and if the student tests positive, he/she would begin the 10 day isolation period from when their symptoms started. If the test is negative, the student would need to complete their 14 day quarantine period from their last contact to the positive case. Please know that individuals who are vaccinated are not required to quarantine unless they are demonstrating COVID-19 symptoms. These symptoms include:
On a different note, with the passage of Senate Bill 1, all school districts have been provided with 20 Remote Learning Days. These days are different from the ten NTI days that are already available to districts. The NTI, or nontraditional instruction days, are used to close the entire district for purposes of inclement weather such as snow days. The 20 Remote Learning Days approved through Senate Bill 1 allow districts the flexibility to use the Remote Learning Days to temporarily halt in-person instruction in certain classrooms or in a school where there may be pockets of high COVID-19 transmission. The Remote Learning Days allow us to temporarily discontinue in-person instruction in a certain school or in a specific classroom while keeping the rest of the district schools and classrooms open for in-person instruction. Again, the purpose behind this is to keep in-person instruction available to as many students as possible and this process will be used in rare instances where there are either high pockets of COVID cases or staff availability is compromised.
Lastly, Anthem wants to recognize teachers and staff for their hard work and dedication during this challenging time! You can nominate a Kentucky teacher or staff member for a chance to win $2,500 for their school! Nominees with the most votes will be named the winners in October and there will be two winning nominees from each region. Nominations are due October 8, 2021, click here for the nomination form!
Thank you for your continued support of our students and staff and please reach out if you ever need our assistance. Take care!
Respectfully,
Rob Clayton
Superintendent, Warren County Public Schools