2020-2021 Reopening Letter to Parents

As educators, our highest aspiration is to provide your children with an outstanding, holistic education to prepare them for their future. To that end, our goal is to safely bring our students back to school for in-person instruction, socialization, and engagement in extra-curricular activities. With that goal in mind, we have studied and considered the following science and evidenced based information:

• Current and forecasted local public health conditions and guidance from national, state and local health officials, to include the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Health Departments,

• Guidance from the Florida Department of Education, Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Emergency Management, and Office of Environmental Health and Safety, Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA), National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), and American Association of School Administrators (AASA),

• Parent preferences for returning in-person and virtually,

• Feasibility of physically reopening campus safely based on the percentage of parents preferring in-person instruction and within the confines of a facility constructed in 1967, and

• Other local school district decisions on reopening schools as there is a direct impact to our families who have children in surrounding and co-located districts.

At this time, we have concluded that given the research and factors stated above, we are going to delay opening the campus for in-person instruction until conditions are more favorable; therefore, our students in grades K-9, will begin the school year on August 17, 2020 with virtual instruction. We wish to reiterate that instruction will be primarily live instruction with a structured schedule of classes/subjects. Administration and teachers will be sharing more about the expectations in the coming weeks.

Students in grades 10-12 will continue to follow FAU’s schedule . We strongly encourage students and families to carefully review all communications from FAU and our high school team.

Again, our desire is to open campus and have all of our students return to in-person instruction as soon as safely possible. With that in mind, we have established target, in-person return dates throughout the first and second quarters. We will closely monitor the public health data in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and, when feasible, we will begin bringing students back for in-person instruction in a phased cohort approach until such time as all families requesting on campus, in-person instruction will be able to return.

Aftercare services, athletics, clubs and activities will continue to be reassessed as we make decisions on when to safely open campus. We will continue to provide you with updates via Blackboard and our website as they become available.

Regardless of the delivery model, we will remain vigilant in ensuring that the quality of education reflects our school’s values and what our students deserve.

We thank you for your support and cooperation.

Sincerely,
Joel Herbst
Superintendent of Schools