Revised Reentry & Reopening Plan 8/14/20

Dear Students, Staff and Families,

We hope this letter finds you all safe and healthy. Thank you for your patience as we work to develop a comprehensive plan to return to learning this fall. At this time, we know there are still many questions about the return to school and we hope this plan begins to answer some of those questions. Today, August 14, 2020, we submitted our reopening plan to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A copy of that plan can be found on our school website. We have included several updates to the plan from the feedback we received from students, staff and families. For example, all students preK-12 will be required to wear masks.

Peabody Public Schools has designed a model of Hybrid Learning that takes into account the varying and unique needs of students at each grade level. The Hybrid Learning model provides PreK-12 students and staff with a combination of in-person and remote teaching and learning experiences. An overview of the hybrid model is described below.

● PreK and Kindergarten: Attend school 4 half days per week (AM/PM) with Wednesday remote
● Grades 1-8: Attend at least 2 days in-person with A/B Cohort model (described below)
● Grades 9-12: Primarily engage with remote instruction – selected populations in-person

Families will be asked to select one option from an alternating in-person/remote schedule (Hybrid Option) or a remote only schedule (Remote Option). For the hybrid schedule, PreK and K attend in-person half days (Cohort A=AM, Cohort B=PM), students in grades 1-8 will participate in in-person instruction 2 days per week and connect virtually on the other days. Alternatively, students may opt to participate in a remote only schedule. We ask that families preliminarily choose one of the two options by Sunday, August 16th.

We are continuing to plan for a phased in approach to returning to school in the fall:
● Phase 1: August 31-September 11 – Professional Development and Training
● Phase 2: September 14-15 – Relationship Building and Establishing Routines
● Phase 3: September 16: Implementation of the Hybrid Schedule (first day for students)
● Phase 4: TBD: Full In-Person Learning

The school committee will be discussing the reopening plans on Tuesday 8/18 at 7pm. We are looking forward to reopening in the fall and seeing our students, staff and families again. Please reach out to your child’s school principal with any questions.

Sincerely,
Josh Vadala Ed.D

Categorized in: Brown Elementary, Burke Elementary, Carroll Elementary, Center Elementary, District, Higgins Middle School, McCarthy Elementary, PVMHS, South Elementary, Welch Elementary, West Elementary