Superintendent’s Community Update, April 23, 2021
Dear Hastings Families, Faculty and Staff,
It has been wonderful having 98% of our students back in our schools. We appreciate your continued vigilance and support in monitoring your child (ren) each morning to ensure no one has COVID symptoms. Families need to complete the daily COVID health questionnaire, check your child’s symptoms, and follow testing guidelines. If your child is awaiting the results of a COVID PCR test, please keep them home. If a family member develops COVID symptoms, please keep your child at home. Sending them to school will lead to further transmission and the need for individuals not fully vaccinated or vaccinated at all to be quarantined.
Our second week back resulted in one positive case and some children who had to be quarantined. Fortunately, no faculty and staff members were impacted because they are fully vaccinated as is the case of almost every adult working in our schools. We hope anyone who tests positive has a safe recovery and those who are quarantined do not become positive.
Surveillance Testing Program
Based on yesterday’s reminder, our Health Offices report an uptick in the return of the parental consent forms required to have children participate in the voluntary surveillance testing program. The program will start on Monday, May 3rd. Each week, we will test 5% of the children whose families completed consent forms. Please review the details of the program and complete the necessary forms found on our website.
Physical Distancing and Barriers
As a requirement outlined in the New York State Department of Health guidance document, a survey was administered to assess the “community’s risk tolerance” for changing the physical distance requirements in classrooms and ending the use of barriers. Information from this presentation was shared at the April 20th Board of Education meeting. If the local community’s active case level continues to remain steady or declines and our school transmission level remains at 0%, we will reassess and make a recommendation at the May 4th Board of Education meeting.
We need to continue to be faithful to the safety practices we’ve adopted. Please keep your child at home if you answer yes to any question on the daily COVID health questionnaire found here. Thank you again for all you are doing to support our schools and keep us safe.
I hope you have a pleasant weekend.
Sincerely,
Valerie Henning-Piedmonte, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
