Novato End Of Week Communication - May 8

Press release from the Novato Unified School District:

May 8, 2020

(en español)

Dear NUSD Community Member,

Whew! We made it through another one! I hope each of you found a way to appreciate a teacher this week. Our teachers are doing tremendous work during this unprecedented time. They have been stripped of their classrooms and asked to make magic happen in the virtual world. As impossible as that is, they have given it their best regardless of their comfort with technology and virtual learning. I appreciate everything that each teacher is doing to support our students academically and emotionally. They are making the impossible possible, every day, while aspects of their homelife are in more upheaval than we thought possible less than two months ago.

I hope you had a chance to watch our virtual session on mental health that took place yesterday, May 7, 2020. We recorded it if you were unable to watch it. I encourage you to watch it here. NUSD realizes that we cannot just support the academic needs of our students, we also need to support our students’ mental health needs. I am proud of our team’s and partners’ efforts to support this important work. We will hold a similar session in Spanish on Tuesday, May 12, 2020, at 4 pm on the NUSD Spanish Facebook page @NUSDenespanol.

Our team is actively planning for reentry in August of 2020. As I mentioned in my end of week communication last week, there is currently more unknown than known. Additionally, I shared that it was likely that this will look different at elementary, middle, and high schools. Some community members asked for clarification regarding what I meant by that and I will do my best to clarify. Current shelter in place restrictions require stringent limits on the size of gatherings. As of today, we must keep students in cohort groups no larger than 12. Students in one cohort cannot interact with students in other cohorts or adults engaging with other cohorts and cannot use common spaces like play structures or cafeterias. These restrictions make it very difficult for us to develop reentry plans. We are brainstorming ways this can work at the different levels. Elementary school students are traditionally, more or less, in cohort groups, though they are significantly larger than 12. Middle and high school students are not. As such, this presents different challenges and will require more creativity and different solutions.

We are in a challenging time. We have the right team and community to get us through this in the best way possible. I am proud of NUSD and of Novato. We continue to make appropriate sacrifices so that we can move to a better normal. Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,

Kris Cosca

This press release was produced by the Novato Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.