Re-Opening Plan as of July 22, 2020
Meridian Community:
As we set upon our process to reopen schools, our sincere hope was that we would be able to create a plan that met the needs and desires of our community. This is why we surveyed the community so frequently and we thank you for your participation in completing those surveys. Our initial survey indicated 46 percent of parents would like Remote Learning as an option.
As such, we built the plan we sent to parents two weeks ago and asked for a commitment to either in-person or remote learning. The caveat was that we needed at least 25 percent of students to take place in remote learning in order to enable in-person instruction, transportation, and food services to operate safely and within the guidelines of the state board of education and the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Unfortunately, we fell far short of that mark when families responded over the past two weeks. This meant that the selection of in-person full-time versus remote instruction was no longer possible for us. Additionally, the feedback we received regarding the proposed Solution Two was negative. So, we went back to the drawing board and have created a new recommendation for the reopening of our schools this fall.
In the pages that follow, we will articulate the new plan in detail. As we do so, it is important to articulate that we have been operating with four priorities throughout the summer in making our decision.
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Health and well-being of students and staff
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Social-emotional health of our students
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Student academic progress
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Our role as a key cog in the community
Based on the feedback we received, we added two components to the equation as we created this plan. We created a plan where all students in a family would attend school on the same days at the same times with the understanding that we need to have students receive face-to-face instruction as much as possible
While I am acutely aware that the recommended plan will not meet the needs or wishes of all members of our school community, please know that I am personally confident that we did our best to adhere to the principles listed above despite the fact that with every solution our guiding principles seemed to be in competition with each other.
Again, thank you for your support. We will do everything we can to make this a safe and productive year for your student(s).
For convenience, in addition to the full plan as proposed to the Board of Education being linked below, so too are one-page summaries of the options for families. In addition, I created a 7 minute explanation of the process and my thoughts on how we arrived where we are and how I hope we move forward. Please take the time to watch it here: https://youtu.be/gCGhn8B7gFA
Thank you,
PJ Caposey
Meridian Re-Opening Plan, Public Edition July 22 v2.pdf
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