Good Afternoon Families,

Here is a COVID -19 planning update. Our Cook County School Incident Command Team (ICT) has been meeting weekly since the beginning of the year. At these meetings we hear from our local Public Health Services and Review the most current county data. We then discuss the data, how it is impacting our school, and how we are going to proceed with our pivots. Recently, our county, state and country has experienced exponential growth of COVID-19 cases and we are seeing an increase of community spread.

We are confident that we have created a safe environment within our school community and are practicing safety precautions to prevent the spread but there seems to be more that needs to be done. At our most recent ICT meeting we discussed how we can help to decrease the spread of COVID-19. As a team we made the decision that at this time we are going to be moving our K-3 grades to distance learning from Nov. 30-Jan. 18.  This is a preventative measure to help during this difficult time and to cause the least disruption to our learning model.

Our teachers and staff will be continuing with their distance learning instruction. Our child care will continue to serve the families that qualify for child care under the most recent Executive Order 20-94, which requires schools to provide child care for children (12 or under) of tier 1 critical workers. It is intended for extreme circumstances in which no parent or guardian is at home, as all of the parents or legal guardians in the child's household are tier 1 critical workers. School districts may also encourage parents or legal guardians of Eligible Children to not utilize the school-age care program if they have the ability to work from home.

Healthcare and public health

Law enforcement, public safety and first responders

food and agriculture

Judicial Branch

National Guard- activated

Educators in PK - 12th grade

School staff providing instructional care for critical workers

Child Care providers

Thank you for understanding that all of these decisions are difficult and are not best for teaching, learning and family situations. We do not make these decisions easily and take our responsibilities very seriously. We will continue to make decisions with the most up to date information and the guidance of our Public Health and Incident Command Team. Please continue to communicate with the school and stay up to date by visiting our school website. We are in this together and we want to continue to serve our Cook County students and families to the best of our abilities during this pandemic. As a district we know that distance learning is not ideal

for most families, but if it creates a hardship for your family, please contact school. 218-387-2271.

Take care and stay healthy.

Mrs. M. Myers, Acting Superintendent/Principal