According to Dr. Kevin Dickerson, Superintendent of Milford School District, the Department of Public Health provided the district with new guidance regarding student learning in an in-school format as well as those who continue to learn completely remote.
“We feel this is very good for us in order to return our students back to school and to meet our goal to bring students back in five days a week in person for the next school year,” Dr. Dickerson said. “They have given some bus considerations here with our last update, so beginning with summer programming, some of our guidance on school buses will change. They are using guidance from the CDC for transporting students where we still have distancing on school buses, but we no longer need to do one child per seat. Face coverings and masks must be worn on the buses and we must minimize student contact getting on and off the bus.”
Dr. Dickerson explained that many parents chose to drive their children to school which has allowed for more space on school buses. This was a key factor in allowing children to return to school four days per week.
“We’ve talked about social distancing in school before,” Dr. Dickerson said. “Now, distancing is a minimum of three feet from the middle of the body to the person next to you. It was six feet shoulder-to-shoulder as we were doing in the beginning of the year. We have also had to make some changes to child nutrition. Masks must be worn until the student begins eating and must be replaced when the child stops eating.”
The goal, according to Dr. Dickerson is to determine what remote learning will look like in the fall. According to the Department of Education’s guidance, is that remote learning can continue for the 2021-22 school year, but each district must come up with a plan for how that would work.
“That is one area we are going to have to assess and have conversations,” Dr. Dickerson said. “We really want to see students come back into the classroom as much as possible. I hope to have a plan for the board n June. As far as addressing our student needs from a teaching standpoint and returning our students back to the classroom on a regular basis, we will need to make some decisions on how to proceed going forward.”
Share this Post