Dear Shrewsbury Families,
The information below was sent to all district families today.
Respectfully,
Joe Sawyer
Superintendent of Schools
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Dear Shrewsbury Families,
I want to provide you with an update to the metrics for decision-making regarding if and when our schools might shift to an all remote program.
The document that I created this past summer specified that the approach to making this decision would be updated if we received updated guidance from the state (see attachment). Earlier this month, state authorities and the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education issued specific guidance that one weekly state report regarding the color coding of a community should not be used to make decisions to switch between learning models, and that districts should rather look at trends over multiple reports. This specific advisory from DESE is included in the updated document that is attached.
I discussed this publicly in the reopening update report at last week’s School Committee meeting (which you can view here and see the presentation slides here). I am also attaching the updated metrics document to this email for your reference.
Based on the case counts over the 14-day period that this evening’s weekly state report will reference (September 27-October 10), I believe that Shrewsbury will either move to the upper range of the yellow rating or move into the red rating in this week’s state report. It is important to note, as I have indicated in recent communications about COVID-19 cases in our school communities, there is currently no evidence of in-school transmission of the virus. In fact, contact tracing has shown clear links to factors outside of the school environment where members of our school communities have tested positive. Noelle Freeman, the Director of School Nursing, and I have consulted with public health authorities about the rise in cases overall in Shrewsbury, and again there is no indication that in-person learning in our schools is contributing to this. Therefore, even if our town’s rating moves to red in this week’s report, I will not move the district to all-remote learning at this time. We will continue to consult with public health authorities and closely monitor changes in case counts, test positivity rates, etc., with the understanding that a change could be made if the evidence points to a need to change our model away from in-person learning.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this message and clicking the link below to read the attachment, and thank you for your continued support of our efforts to provide our students with the best education we can under these challenging circumstances.
Respectfully,
Joe Sawyer
Superintendent of Schools