May 12, 2020

North Linn Parents,

As our abnormal school year begins to wind down, I wanted to reach out to provide an update on a couple of items as well as let you know what we are working on as we prepare for the eventual return of our students for this fall.

• On May 18th and May 19th from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. elementary parents will be assigned a 2 hour window of time to come to the school to retrieve your children(s) items.  Please know that this will be a curbside pick-up so you do not need to enter the school. Staff members will bring your child’s items to your vehicle. An organizational email has already been emailed out by Mrs. Graven.  If you have any questions or conflicts, please reach out to Mrs. Graven.
• When you do arrive at the building, we would truly appreciate that you also return your child’s computer, hotspot or library books that your student may have borrowed.  We will need to begin the process in June of cleaning and updating the machines and re-organizing our media centers and classrooms.
• On May 26th and May 27th Seniors may come to the building to retrieve their personal items, and also return their computer, hotspot, library books, classroom textbooks as well as any athletic or fine arts items/gear. Caps and gowns will also be distributed.  Mr. Beaty will be emailing students in the near future the assigned time frame for pick-up.   Mr. Beaty is in the planning process with our Middle School and High School staff for the remainder of our students to pick up their personal items, clean out their lockers and return any school items they may have.  Information regarding pick-up will also be coming soon.
• If we are able to we will be offering a morning summer school program Monday through Thursday for our elementary children beginning the week of July 13th.  This program will run for 3 weeks.  Although we will be expanding the program to involve more students than we normally do, we will still organize this invite program similar to previous years.  We need to take care of our most vulnerable children first. But to also meet the needs of all of our children, we will be offering online summer school lessons developed by our teachers similar to what is currently being offered.  We will make available devices and/or hotspots if this is needed for online learning.  This gives all of our students an opportunity to stay engaged if a family so desires.  Additional details will be forthcoming.
• We have met with County Public Health to review and implement a whole host of protocols to ensure the safety of our students and staff.  This includes daily temperature checks, providing face masks for staff, practicing social distancing the best that we can, and disinfecting the classrooms daily.
• We have received guidance from Linn County Public Health, regarding graduation.  At this time the data does not support any type of gathering of 10 people or greater, and Public Health does not see this ending anytime soon.  We are hoping that by selecting a mid-July graduation date, that social distancing guidelines will be eased and it will be safe to have some type of ceremony for our students.  Obviously, we will continue to follow Linn County Public Health and the Governor’s recommendations and keep you posted regarding graduation.
• Please know that these recommendations also include prom.  As the date approaches, a decision will be made.
• According to the Governor’s proclamation, ALL school facilities are closed through June 1st.  As difficult as this is, students are not to be using the weight room or gymnasiums at this time.  We are hoping that within 2 weeks the Governor will make a decision regarding interscholastic competitions and practices on school grounds.
• Our school calendar for the 20/21 school year will be modified.  Our instructors completely understand that we need to get our kids back to school sooner rather than later.  So we will be starting school earlier than August 24th and we will build in additional days and hours to help us close the learning gap due to the virus.  I believe this speaks volumes about our instructors and what they know is good for our students and our community.  We will finalize details in the next week or so and then get an updated calendar out to you for your summer planning.
• This past Friday we received a guidance document from the Department of Education regarding our “Return to Learn” plan.  As I have alluded to in previous emails, we will design plans to meet our student learning needs based on the challenges we may possibly face during the 2020 – 2021 school year.  These plans will include:

• Ensuring that required remote learning opportunities are available for all of our students;
• Planning to help our students catch-up for the learning they have missed during our closure;
• Integrating public health strategies into our buildings; and
• Enabling our schools to move between required on-site and remote learning as needed.

Our plan will need to be submitted to the Department of Education by July 1st.  As we continue to work through this plan I will take the time to update you on our planning and implementation process. 

• Finally, we will continue to offer our food service program during the month of June.  We anticipate that our program will be similar to what we are currently offering and delivery locations. There may be a few changes based on Federal and State guidelines so we will finalize the summer program by the end of next week.

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or one of our staff members if you have any questions and please stay safe!

Doug