 Hello everybody, my name is Macy May and I'm the editor of the Lamont Veeder and today I'm here with Dr. Don Haddad, who is the superintendent of the St. Brain Valley School District and he is here today to talk to us about some of our questions around school reopening. So thank you very much Don for joining us here today and answering all of our questions. Sure, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. Absolutely. So we're just going to start this off. I know lots of people have a ton of questions and we're going to get through as many of those as we possibly can. But if you wouldn't mind, could you reiterate kind of what the plan is for the school year and what that kind of looks like for our parents? Of course. One thing I would always preface it by saying is given the uncertainty of how the coronavirus will continue to evolve, we always want people to know that this is our plan as of today. It feels comfortable in terms of moving forward, but we always know that it's subject to change depending on what Boulder County Department of Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health tells us and things like that. So we are looking at a hybrid model, grade through 12. We also have preschool in session and we'll be following at preschool level all the guidelines from the state. So we'll be running a relatively normal operation with our preschool students. K through 12 will be a hybrid model and what that will look like at the elementary school and the middle school and at the high school level you'll have kids separated into two groups A and B. So group one, group two or group A, group B. And at the high school level group A would come in for two days on Monday and Tuesday, then they would be at home Wednesday and Thursday, group two comes in on Wednesday and Thursday and then on Friday it would be a different group each Friday. So the first Friday would be group one, second Friday would be group two. So at the high school level they would alternate between having two days or three days in person in the school and the other days would be at home. And the middle school would be on the same kind of schedule just rotating the same schedule that they're currently on rotating. One day would be group A and then group B and then group A and then group B and so on and so forth. And then elementary school it would be the same thing. So the end result would be that we would have half the students in the school each day and it would be a different half every day. The other thing that will reduce class sizes even more than just the half hybrid model is that we have our launched ed online program which is open to any student K through 12 will actually have that across the board and there's no criteria other than that's what you choose as a parent and student. And so the numbers would be cut in half in terms of student enrollment in the school on any given day but then they would also be lowered by the students who have selected the online full time. And right now we're you know about getting close to 1200 students throughout the district who have selected that my hunch is it will continue to rise and that will bring our class sizes down even more. And why we chose this one we have technology that allows our students when they are at home to log in virtually in real time because every teacher will have a laptop they'll have high powered lenses and wide lenses and then microphones. So as a student if I'm at home I can log in for the first part of the class or I can log in virtually in real time for the entire class whichever I choose. And that's a little bit unique to St. Rain a lot of other school districts don't have that capacity so they're either online on their own or they're in person with ours we can be in person or online at home but coming in virtually in real time. The other thing that it does for us is it lowers our class sizes so that we can adhere to the guidelines from Boulder County Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health meaning we can separate kids by a number of feet which is good and the goal is six feet and by lowering those now they tell us that three feet is adequate when I say they I mean the Department of Health but we can do more by going to this hybrid model. We will also have students that are required to wear masks throughout the day and teachers and staff as well but this hybrid model allows us to kind of slow slowly get back into the system and have the buildings at half capacity in terms of the numbers of students in the building. That also takes pressure off of our ventilation systems. Our ventilation systems are set to operate well beyond the standard of safety by ASHRAE which is the American Society of Heating and Refrigerator Engineers and things along those lines so we are at a much higher level of productivity and then with the student body lower that functions at an even higher level so we feel very good about that and then it gives our students and our parents and our teachers a chance to settle in in a nice, calm environment to start with. So those are all the things that caused us to go with the hybrid. We were told by Boulder County Health that we needed to do X, Y and Z in terms of mitigation and this allows us the in-person experience to keep our students connected to their teachers and their staff which is really important keeping them closely connected to school but also keeping the class sizes down to adhere to the guidelines and the expectations that are being asked of us from the Department of Health. Great, you mentioned some of that synchronized learning from home. How much time are students expected to log into their classroom from home? You know, we'd like for them to at least log in to the first 15 minutes, 20 minutes and the teachers will direct that and coach their students as to how much they should log in but typically, you know, if they're logging in at the beginning and getting the instructions and the directions and then they can engage in independent study, now some students are going to want to log in for the entire time because they'll feel more comfortable staying connected and watching and listening and learning and those kinds of things but it won't necessarily be necessary because we don't expect kids to be logged in online on screen for an entire day. It'll just be strategic based on the direction of the teacher in terms of how long they and we hope that that will be at the beginning so that there'll be some latitude for the student but yeah, we don't anticipate that they should be logged in the entire time by any stretch. Great and in the situation where we have to return to online learning, what is the district's plan for that and how easy will that transition be? Well, we currently now have a device and iPad for every single one of our students all the way through the system and our teachers are all equipped with laptops and the microphones and the lenses and so we can transition if we had to. Everyone do at home learning and we can do a combination of synchronous learning and online learning and so it would be a blended model where some of the time they're synchronously logged in with their teacher like we are now and other times they would be working independently off of assignments that are posted to the various platforms that we have available to them. But the transition would be relatively you know nothing's smooth when you're talking about the COVID virus, nothing's completely smooth. But it would be relatively smooth for us given the fact that we have the equipment, the technology, the teachers and the students and in this hybrid model they'll become acclimated to how to work at home. We also have the benefit for lack of a better word of the fact that they went through the spring semester so many of our students and teachers. This is a little different because we didn't necessarily do the synchronous learning during the springtime but we will be making that part of our system for the fall. Okay. Some folks are chatting in right now and they're curious about deadlines for enrolling in the online school and the was it launch ed and are there any deadlines into the school year such that if I send my student there and two weeks then I decide this is not the model that works for them and I choose online. Can they change to the online schooling at that point? Yeah. We we'd like we've set a tentative deadline for August 12th. I think that's a Wednesday. I'm not sure but I think that's a Wednesday but August 12th which will give us enough time to create all of the classrooms and teachers diamonds and things like that. And to your point if I start online and two weeks later if I select let's say the launch dev and then two weeks later I decide I want to return to in-person we will allow that. We would just ask that the parents would work with the principal at that point in time to transition at a time that makes sense. Usually at a quarter break or a semester break but we're not going to be really rigid with that. If there's a real pressing need to start right away we will allow flexibility with families. That's been one of our you know our guiding principles that we want to be flexible. So yes if you start online you can transition back to in-person. If you start in-person you can transition out to online if you feel like that's something that you would like to do. Great. Can you talk about some of the expectations with parents? I know there was talk about parents needing to check temperatures but basically could you walk us through how parents should prepare their students every day for school in this system? Yeah we're asking parents at the elementary school level to make sure that they have two masks for their children one that we can keep in a baggie with their name on it at school in the event that they forget and then one that they take home with them every night and make sure it's a mask that fits well and that your child is able to take them off and put them on on their own and they feel comfortable with that. We also are asking that parents take their child's temperature before they leave the house every day and if it's at 100.4 or higher then we would ask them to stay home and that's per direction from the Department of Health. We would also ask them if they can to have coach them on washing their hands regularly throughout the day when they take breaks and coach them around hand sanitizers if they you know sometimes depending on the comfort level of the parent to have a little bottle with their child in their uh you know that they send with them and they could use that and again it's a little different for younger students versus older students things like that we'll let the parents be the the guide for that and then we have a you know a Safe with Seven campaign that talks about washing your hands making sure you have your mask making sure you're practicing social distancing so parents would like you to coach your students especially our younger ones not to get you know sometimes elementary school kids they'll get you know touch each other have each other and all those kinds of things you know and I in a normally appropriate way but in this environment we're asking them to you know to kind of try to maintain that social distance as much as they can one thing that we're really told multiple times is that the likelihood of transmission with kids that age is very very very low and if it were to happen the symptoms are much less severe almost always than influenza the regular influenza for elementary school kids which is what we're talking about right now but those are the kinds of things that we would want you know our parents help with that that taking their temperature is going to be the big one at home and just feeling comfortable keeping them at home if they're running any kind of a temperature at all at 100.4 or above some parents have been asking why aren't the schools taking temperatures yeah we've been encouraged by the Department of Health their lead doctors from both Colorado and Boulder County to have that done at home so that students don't get to school with a temperature because once they get to school with the temperature and then you have to put them in a room and then call the parents and have the parents come pick them up and sometimes parents can't do that and so it just triggers a whole set of responses that are really unnecessary and what we're encouraging we have in the handouts we gave a checklist that parents can print out and on that checklist it tells them everything that they should be doing with their student before they send them to school and so we would encourage parents to post that in a place that's visible in their home uh you know maybe it's on the refrigerator maybe it's on the door that before they walk out and just make sure that that's done that all of those things are all those boxes are checked and this is one of those situations where uh you know parents are a key element of this partnership and for every parent you know we know there is nothing more important than their child and in the in the world I mean that's the most important thing to any parent we know that and so we believe that they will enthusiastically embrace that opportunity to take their child's temperature and make sure that they are safe to go to school and that's something that we appreciate very much that parents will do if a student were to get to school and demonstrate overt symptoms they're coughing they're sneezing they look lethargic we would then take their temperature but again it is so critically important that that happens before they leave home and if they have that temperature or any of the other that they stay home what happens in a situation where um potentially a child staff member or teacher somebody tests positive for COVID or even in an outbreak situation what are the district's plans for that we have an epidemiologist assigned to our school district from Boulder County Public Health and we also have several contact tracers and so if there were to be someone who tested positive we also have a system that will be in place where our teachers have access to testing at no charge to the teacher and if anyone were to test positive we would ask them at that point to stay home we would turn that information over to the epidemiologist they would run their typical protocol and then they would tell us what would happen because in each situation it might be different depending on who that person has come into contact with and a whole host of other things but it would always start with stay home report it to the epidemiologist which we would do the contact tracing and then direction from there as to if any other things need to happen does a group of students need to be quarantined does a classroom need to be quarantined does a school need to be quarantined or more than one school and in that instance we would shift to online learning for anyone who falls into that category so will parents be notified if someone inside their classroom or someone their student was in contact with tested positive yeah and that's where the contact tracing comes in and that's where boulder county and the health departments similar to what would happen even if we're not in school you know right now in the summer if somebody were to test positive they would contact trace and they would go back and tell people but the county department the county health department would be responsible for delivering that information to the families and then also to answer whatever questions that they might have how can parents make sure that they um are set up to to receive those notifications well they would receive they would be contacted by boulder county health and boulder county health will share with us you know what their steps are and we would make sure that you know there are a series of different ways that we can communicate with our parents regardless of what the information is for their child but that contact would be made by boulder county health because it you know it's a health it's a health matter and you know there are other things that we deal with you know whether it's pertussis I remember a time when we had a tuberculosis outbreak and there are other things that happen if a certain number of children in a school contact regular influence or any of these other things they have these protocols in place and that's where we when I get asked that question I never want to get out in front of it because it may be a different response depending on the circumstances and and the health department of health would guide that but it would always start with staying home notifying the epidemiologist and boulder county health and then they would take it from there with the contact tracing and the notifications great so I think I'm gonna switch on over a lot of parents were concerned that after the last school board meeting there was not a plan at least announced at that time about special education is there a plan for special education students now yeah you know our special education students children with special needs they have individual education plants individualized education plants they refer to as IEPs and the coordinators we have several coordinators in our special education department and it's led by Laura Hess who's our executive director and they along with our teachers will be working with each student individually based on their particular IEP and so the plan is that every student will get individualized attention from their coordinator from their teacher and their family would articulating exactly what the plan is for their child because with each special needs child the plan might look different some will need to come in every day and if that's the need based on their IEP and they would come in full time and receive those services in person full time some could do very well and it's not necessary they might be on a hybrid model and so whatever is in the best interest and in compliance with that child's individualized education plan that's what we would do and that's why we don't put out a blanket here's what we do because it's going to look different for every one of our students what I can guarantee and promise is that every one of our students will be afforded the resources and the support that they need based on their IEP and the contact and communication from our special education department it's good to know that we can just reach out as a special appearance to whomever and uh individualize our plans as we see fit uh thank you for that personally thank you for that um it's one you know when you individualize the plans in accordance with the individualize the IEP right yes okay absolutely thank you I just I love that I can talk to someone and figure out the plan with my with my particular student um so moving on to mask you've briefly talked about how how elementary school students are asked to bring in a separate um mask and um things like that do you have any sort of restrictions or protocols on what kinds of masks are being worn some students can tolerate like a cloth mask or a net gator some maybe a face shield is there anything that school districts outlined on that now we want it to be comfortable for the student to be a cloth mask if they feel more comfortable in a face shield they're certainly welcome to do that if they have those gators that cover their mouth and they can certainly do that we want it to be comfortable with this for the student we want them to be able to manage it and be able to put it on when it's appropriate take it off we also know that especially with our younger children they're going to need a number of breaks and so those will be built into the schedule every day where kids can go outside you know when they eat obviously they're not going to have their masks on and you know that the transmission level is so at this age group in elementary school that we have the opportunity to give lots of breaks if there is a student there's a child that has any type of a pre-existing medical condition we can create exemptions for that particular student and set it up to where they will be able to to function without a mask in an area that is still allows them to access a great educational experience so how is the district handling specials and electives i know some high school students have electives over at the innovation center yeah how how is that supposed to work at the elementary school we're working on cohorting specials so specials will look a little bit different at the elementary school with our music and physical education to where cohorts stay and that way teachers aren't seeing all of the kids all of the time and those plans will look just a little bit different at every elementary school based on facilities and based on programming and so the principals will explain a little bit of a nuance and difference at the elementary level with the innovation center students will be able to access the innovation center and they will also be able to access the career development center in person when appropriate and online when appropriate but those two will be available for students and with traditional electives like band and orchestra and choir there are certain guidelines that we have to adhere to and our principals and our music and other teachers arts will be receiving those guidelines and they would be managed in the same way as a hybrid model where you would come in half the time in person and half the time at home and working virtually with those programs and we saw some pretty incredible creative virtual choirs and other things that were created by our teachers so all of the electives will be available which is a good question because the number of districts have eliminated their elective programming so that they can limit kids to maybe take three or four classes and that's it we didn't feel like that was necessary with our hybrid model because we can reduce class sizes enough and create the social distancing enough to where we didn't have to eliminate all of those other opportunities for students so for students who are doing the launch ed coursework and they have previously enrolled in things like orchestra will they be able to participate in those courses you know every situation will look differently they're they are going to be able to participate if they're enrolled in the online program through Florida virtual if they have opportunities to enroll in some of the electives through that then no they would stay with Florida virtual but there will be opportunities for some students depending on whether or not the program is offered through Florida virtual and whether or not the the class sizes allow for that participation with the with a music program or drama or theater our hope is to be able to accommodate students in that way but we have to wait and see what all of those class sizes look like and look at take it on an individual basis with students i'm just going to jump over here to a question we have questions within this platform and one of the biggest questions i have here at least one who is voted on by listeners today is i'm just reading verbatim i'm aware that many of the teachers in the district have been pulled surveyed about the returning about returning to school full time have there been any surveys to parents guardians about their desires to return yeah what we've done is in all the letters that i've sent we have included an invitation for parents to access the link that comes into our website and it's a questionnaire you can ask questions you can make suggestions you can and we have had hundreds and hundreds of parents express their opinion share their questions share their preference so we have heard from a number of them from that venue we also have on our website that that question and answer kind of you know where they can contact our school board and myself through that venue and then they're also i've met a number of people who have emailed me directly to get information along those lines so yes we have had a lot of parents provide great feedback and i'm very appreciative of that the thing about it is with this is you're really left with three options you know you're left with either you bring everybody back full time or you keep everybody home full time or you go with the hybrid and so what we wanted to do is provide choices for parents where you can either choose if if you're among those that want to not come in at all you have that online option if you're among those who want to come in you have the option for the hybrid model and if you have special needs and circumstances there will be full-time opportunities for for some one of the things that makes you know makes it a little bit easier for us is the synchronous learning capacity that we have we have also set up in each of our elementary schools a community schools daycare program so that if you do find yourself in a challenging situation with daycare we've tried to accommodate that as well so when i say that to you there has not been really much of any feedback from parents except one of those three options they'll say i want the hybrid i want full in or i want full out you know that kind of thing and we know that we know that whether we've heard that from 10 000 people or whether we hear it from 12 000 people we understand the three different options that are people are looking for we have a quite a few people after we have identified the hybrid quite a few people are saying you know gosh we'd like to be able to come in full time and you know we appreciate that and that's what we're all wanting to happen as soon as possible but we also need to be able to implement the guidelines and the directions from our health county our county health departments in order to do that and it's hard to social distance when you bring in 30 kids into a classroom and so that's what caused us to move to that hybrid model. Another question from our listeners today a recent survey was taken that indicated 78 percent of teachers were uncomfortable returning to the classroom. Their exact question is do we want our children being taught by people who feel unsafe being in the classroom but how have you addressed the concerns of teachers in reopening? Well it's not 78 percent of the teachers in St. Rain. It's much lower than that. That was a survey done I think by the state association level. I have seen the survey from St. Rain Valley schools teachers and while there is you know there's anxiety and there's question and there's concern which is absolutely normal and I appreciate that and we've listened and we've tried to create as many accommodations and mitigation efforts as possible but that does not represent the majority of teachers in St. Rain. I hear from teachers in St. Rain all the time that they they are just really excited about getting back together with their students and then the conversation switches to what measures are being taken to make sure that everyone is safe. The other thing that I you know would share with people when you start to bring together all of the efforts in this comprehensive approach and you think about temperature checks at home, you think about masks, you think about social distancing, you think about ventilation systems that are working at much higher levels of functioning than what's required, you think about the hand washing, you think about the sanitizing, you think about all of the precautionary measures that have taken place and the age of the students and the transmission things. There's been a lot done to create even safer environments than exist normally and so I think that's kind of the general sentiment. I don't want to say that there's not anxiety and there's not concern. The other thing is with our teachers, any teacher who has a pre-existing health condition they would be teaching online as long as they qualify with that documented health related issue or a certain age group they would be able to teach online and then we will move after that first tier of accommodations to teachers who have primary care responsibilities for somebody else at home and try to accommodate as many as possible there. So our teachers with with those concerns will be teaching online for the most part and that has helped alleviate some of the anxiety. I want to be very respectful of the anxiety and the concern that you know our teachers have, our parents have, or our students have because this is an unprecedented pandemic and this is something that we're all concerned about and we are leaning heavily on our health departments to tell us you know what's safe and what we needed to be doing to protect our students. In some instances the schools might be the safest place to be when you consider all of the precautionary measures that we're taking because what we know about students and adults even when they're not in school it doesn't mean that they're not still going into the grocery stores and into the malls and you know into the restaurants or you know out in the evenings interacting with people in the parks and things like that and oftentimes you know I see people interacting in those environments who aren't socially distanced and who up until a very short while ago weren't wearing masks and weren't checking their temperatures or were going into buildings where the HVAC systems weren't as effective so it's that whole unknown that I think causes that anxiety and we want to be respectful of that and we're working very closely with our teachers association and all of our employees to mitigate those those anxieties and those potential risks as much as we possibly can. We've hired a second custodial crew so we've doubled up on our custodial staff and we will be cleaning the buildings during the day with high touch areas and then we will be cleaning them again at night which is more than we normally do and so that's just another layer of mitigation. So while we're on the topic of some of that support staff the custodians the you know food service crews and things of that nature are there any requirements for them as far as temperature taking and and things of that and can you kind of talk about what the plan is around those support staff? Yeah we have the same expectations of our adults as we do of our students in terms of temperature checks, masks, social distancing, washing your hands, hand sanitizers and we have a program set up for our employees to be tested a couple of times a month at no cost to the employee around COVID and things along those lines but yes the expectations are for all of us for me for our teachers for our principals for our classified staff our bus drivers everyone, substitute teachers as well and everyone will be expected to adhere to the safety guidelines. So some parents were asking questions as well about substitute teachers and here we are in a health pandemic we can probably expect at least a few teachers to get sick throughout the school year. Is there a specific plan for substitute teachers as they will be floating in and out of classrooms? Yeah the testing they will be testing and then we'll also have temperature taking when they come in substitutes we will actually ask them to take their temperature at home but we will also take their temperature before they enter and then they will be expected to wear masks and all of the same safety precautions as everyone else. Will those substitute teachers be monitored a little bit more as far as tracking who they've been in contact with? Yeah and that's part of the the whole concept of we would take their temperature before they actually engage and we would ask them and have them test for COVID prior to starting as a substitute teacher and those kinds of things so yeah we would definitely be doing everything we can to make sure that they're you know we're looking at not only how we respond if somebody yet but we're trying to approach it from a preventative method or a standard first. Some folks were asking about attending like the IB program and that not being online and are there other courses that maybe aren't offered online and how will students continue with that work? They can choose the hybrid model and then when they're at home they can log in virtually in real time and be in that classroom experience just virtually and they also would have the choice if they wanted full online because IB is not offered through Florida Virtual they could synchronously come into that class every single day and follow their normal schedule from home in real time to be part of that that class and IB is unique because Florida Virtual does not offer international baccalaureate things along those lines so yes they can participate in that in our AP programs and all of those kinds of programs either from home or in person. So what efforts are being made to align schedules for family with students who span multiple grade levels elementary to high school and are families allowed to weigh in on what those options might be? At the elementary and middle school level we've asked principals you know obviously if you're in the same school you would probably be separated by alphabet so it would automatically happen if you had two kids in an elementary school or two kids in a middle school or two kids in a high school or more but if you happen to have one at the elementary and one at the middle level and you fell in like one student was on an a day and one student was on a b day we've asked the principals to get together and shift one of those students so that they're both on that same day so that they can come to school together and stay home together at the high school level it'll be a little bit different because that block schedule is such that they rotate a little bit different than elementary and middle so at the elementary and middle level we can definitely accommodate it at the high school level gets a little more challenging but at the high school level they go two days in a row so they would in some cases be on the same on one day they would be on the same rotation as a sibling anyways because if i'm coming in on Monday and Tuesday as a high school student who won on one of those days where the my elementary school sibling is rotating a day b day i might not be on the same day as them one of those days but i would be on the second day so but at the elementary and middle level we can definitely align them fully are there ways to align like the Friday schedule for high school and elementary school in some cases but not not in all cases elementary school kids you know they're just going to be on that every other day kind of rotation or as high school kids it would be every other Friday so in some cases for Fridays they would connect and some Fridays they they wouldn't necessarily connect um so can we talk a little bit about um busing and how students and families can um well how will they see that what would that look like we sent home from the last communication information that indicates we have about 6 000 students who ride the bus out of our 33 000 and we sent home information on registering to ride the bus and the reason we wanted them to register and submit that is so that we could get an idea of exactly how many kids are going to be on that bus now one thing that'll happen with the hybrid model is because we're cutting the enrollment every day in half that also cuts our bus ridership every day in half and then when you throw in the launched ed for full-time online it cuts the bus ridership down even more but the key is parents have to register to let us know that they are going to ride the bus now a number of districts have eliminated transportation except for a number of our surrounding districts have eliminated transportation except for children with special needs we chose not to eliminate transportation we think we can accommodate everyone but we need parents to register so that we have a clear number and then we would do things like a sign seating on the bus mask wearing on the bus sitting six feet back from the bus driver loading the bus from back to front lowering windows when we need to all of those kinds of things taping off the bus seats so that there's a middle space that's open so kids are separated a little bit but that that the first thing they absolutely have to do is register their student and that information was on my last communication that went home to all families under the transportation link and i'm pretty sure that most of that information is also up on the school website and we will post that in our chat for those of you who need that information one more time um one other thing i would share with you is all of our principals and i have put together a video for each school and that will be coming out in august where parents can actually watch the principal walking through the school and talking them through this is what your child's lunch period will look like this is what it'll look like in the classroom and so they'll be talking their way through it but it'll also be a visual so parents can actually see what a child's day will look like and then the the principal will remind them of the safe with seven campaign and all the things around temperature and everything else so i would encourage parents to look for that video when it comes out they should also be looking for in their future this week around whether their child falls into group A or group B and whichever one it is then there is also a calendar of our school year month by month that has the A calendar and the B calendar so once you see that letter from your principal and you find out as your child an A or a B group then you would go to our calendar and look at the calendar for A days and a calendar for the B days and put that up in a place where you can access it consistently speaking of calendars i know in the past we've had late starts since late starts still going to be some things that's implemented in the district yes we're going to still have late starts so that we can give our teachers a chance to come together now all of our teacher meetings though you know be able to come together and talk about well how did things go last this last few weeks and make adjustments as necessary so we will have the late start days well those always be on the first Wednesday still and then how do we offset that with our A group and that yeah look take a look at the calendars as they come out and it will articulate or you'll be able to see exactly when those are located or when those take place and it'll be all right there because what i don't want to do is you know say something that contradicts that but just look at that visual and it'll tell you exactly um but it won't you'll still have an A day or a B day so after the late start day it'll still be either an A group or a B group that comes in okay um so some parents were concerned about what kind of measures the district is taking to support their students in an emotional capacity has there been a plan implemented for this yeah we have great counselors and we have great interventionists and then obviously we have you know teachers outstanding teachers and they will all be working together as we always do to support our children emotionally and their their well-being and that will be you know a top priority for us so as kids are struggling which we know that some will because this is a very this has been a very challenging experience they'll have access to counselors they'll have the access to interventionists to school psychologists to social workers to teachers to administrators to campus supervisors to i mean you name it we've got a lot of people that are 5 000 committed to these children all 33 000 of them so we're here to provide them with support right and we're here to provide our teachers and our staff with that same you know with emotional support too because it's it's not only a challenging time for children it's a challenging time for adults you know and so we want to make sure that that we're responsive to all of all of the people within our system what kind of supports are available for parents on those non-contact days you mean when they're at home yes when the students at home well the parents when you talk about support like are you talking about instructional support you talk about food support what are you i'm talking about instructional support so being able to still work and know that my student is still engaged in their classroom well they can either log in virtually in real time or they can work independently with their device at home or they can access any one of the 25 26 community school daycare centers that we have open and uh because we'll have one in every one of our elementary schools so those are the ways in which they'll have their academic support and you know for each age group it's gonna obviously be a lot easier for a high school student to engage academically if their parents not home with parents with students who are really young who can't stay home by themselves they'll either have someone an extended family member that might be able to help them maybe it's an older sibling if you've got a high school and an elementary school kid at home at the same time maybe it's the community school's daycare program but we wanted to make sure there were at least options for parents that doesn't mean i'm not here to say it doesn't create a hardship for parents and i you know everything about me wants to mitigate every hardship that i can possibly mitigate i also understand that we are in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and it's it's impossible to mitigate every person's hardship but we are committed to trying as best we can so you mentioned the community schools being offered in elementary schools for daycare are those on so just before and after school are they spanning part of the school day yeah both oh okay great um and then that's go ahead that's my right side in each one of our schools each one of our elementary schools perfect um i'm we skipped around in my questions a little bit so i'm looking for where i was sorry about that what about students who don't read yet or students who fall behind is there anything that special about those situations that the district plans to do yeah we're setting up after school support tutoring for literacy in in our elementary schools and then we're also looking at creating some small group opportunities on a saturday for example or after school so there are definitely plans in place to try to avoid backsliding in terms of the capacity to read and things along those lines so in essence what we're doing is creating more time for kids we also have in our virtual myon reader for all of our elementary school students for parents can engage their students and read and it's translated into English and Spanish and so parents can and we actually encourage this for parents to read with their children every night for a half an hour i think that that's critically important that in and of itself will go along ways for kids not backsliding academically but even with that we will be providing extra opportunities for children to come in and get support as they need it thanks um so i guess that the last question here is what is the criteria that sd sd d sd is looking at in order to return to what we would probably consider a normal school year when the county health department and the state health department relaxes their recommendations on social distancing on masks and on and they'll always track the number of outbreaks within a community and uh we will follow their guidance now one of the things that's always interesting is they they will say that it's up to the school district to make that decision finally because the governor has recognized local control however they still expect you to hear adhere to the guidelines for safety and so until you can do the social distancing and all of the things that come with their recommendations you wouldn't want to bring all the kids back and we're hoping that uh you know we're hoping that that's sooner than later but we just uh as i said at the you know when you're talking a little earlier it's a you know we just can't control this virus in terms of if it's going to spike or if it's going to drop off and you know and also when there will be a vaccine so is there anything that we maybe did not discuss today that you wanted to talk to parents about you know i the only thing i would like to say a couple things first of all i want to thank our parents and our teachers and our staff you know i've i it's been an outpouring of support and i really appreciate that and well there's anxiety and fear for some and there's you know sometimes that uh turns into anger i and i understand that and so we kind of are just in that space to say you know we want you to know that we are 24 7 looking at every possible way to open our schools and to make them safe and that we're not making any of these decisions in isolation we are lockstep with our health departments and we are looking at things from a big picture perspective and we're also trying to give parents choice parents who want their children to come back parents who don't want them physically we're trying to create as many choices as we can for our parents and our students and we're also trying to uh to support our teachers and our staff who are critically important we want to give them as many choices as we can within our capacity to do that you know with pre-existing conditions and i guess what i would want people to know is uh the level of concern and care that we have is as high as it can possibly be we also know that we can't we it's it's not possible to make everybody say that's perfect that's exactly what i wanted and the reason that's not possible is because they don't agree with each other you know sometimes people will say well you should listen to your community well would that be this third of the community or this third of the community or this third of the community because we we don't want anybody to assume that there's agreement out and amongst the community or amongst the teachers or amongst the administrators this is one of those things where across the entire united states there are vastly different opinions and that's why we have to stay closely connected to the health departments and rely on their expertise as we make these decisions they're not being made for political reasons they're not being made for expediency they're not being made for financial reasons they're being made for health reasons and that's physical health and safety and emotional health and safety and those are the kinds of things that we're looking at and that's why we are tied so tightly to boulder county health the car honor department of public health and the experts to guide us they were in attendance at one of our most recent board meetings and i would encourage anybody who's interested in hearing what they have to say to go back and log into that board meeting because we had their lead a physician in this you know dr urbina was there uh jeff seatch heather craig all the people from the county health departments that understand the health implications very well and that's who's guiding us at this point in time and within that guidance we're trying to be as family friendly as we can possibly be because we understand that we are here to serve our families well thank you you certainly have your work cut out for you this school year and we thank you very much for your time today thank you for all of those who chime in and tune in today with the one month leader we will be posting some q and a so we'll go back to this video and and put some easy documentation there for those of you who prefer to read those answers by dr haddad um and if you have any other questions feel free to reach out to us at info at one month leader dot com and dr haddad thank you so much for your time today we greatly appreciate that okay thank you i really appreciate the time thanks to our parents thanks to our teachers our students everybody and stay well you as well thank you so much okay