Novato Unified School District Superintendent Update - October 23, 2020

Press release from the Novato Unified School District:

October 23, 2020

En español

Dear NUSD Family,

After many months of learning and preparation, we are very excited to welcome our Transitional Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and self-contained Special Day Classes back to our schools on Monday, October 26, 2020. We have missed having students on campus so much since we sent them home on March 13. Bringing our students back to campus will be an all hands-on deck process supporting our elementary campuses by our secondary administrative teams, our district office administrative team, and our Trustees.

Topics included in today’s letter are:

• Elementary school parent meetings and videos
• COVID Handbook for Students and Families
• Family Handbook for Students and Families Safety Video
• Marin Public Health/MCOE Community Conversation – COVID-19: A Safe Return to School
• Revised Special Day Class instructional day and bell schedule
• NUSD District Office

Elementary school parent meetings and videos

I am very proud of the great work done by each of our elementary principals on the safety meetings, videos, and/or presentations they prepared to show their returning students and families what to expect upon their return to school. These efforts demonstrated many of the safety efforts we have taken to safely bring students and staff back to campus and show the hard work the principals and their teams have done to prepare.

COVID Handbook for Students and Families

A critical resource to support students’ and staff’s safe return to school is the COVID Handbook for Students and Families. Site specific handbooks have been prepared and either have been or will be shared with all families. You can view the county template of this important document here and the NUSD template here. This document includes a thorough overview, a parent/guardian community health pledge, site based COVID-19 contacts, preventative measures taken at school, health and hygiene practices, processes for parents to follow in specific situations, communications protocols for specific scenarios, and attendance policies.

Families Handbook for Students and Families – Safety Video

Marin County Office of Education and Marin County Health and Human Services recorded the following video to provide an overview of the COVID Handbook for Students and Families. That video can be viewed here. It provides insight into the document and how it will be used.

Marin Public Health/MCOE Community Conversation – COVID-19: A Safe Return to School

As you may be aware, we rescheduled our Virtual Town Hall to Monday, October 26, 2020, after Marin Public Health and Marin County Office of Education scheduled a community conversation at the same date and time. Knowing that their conversation would likely be of interest to many of our families, we felt it best to reschedule our town hall. If you were unable to view the community conversation, you can access it here on the County of Marin Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CountyOfMarin/ or on the Marin County Office of Education Rethinking School website here.

Revised Special Day Class instructional day and bell schedule

After listening to feedback regarding the bell schedule for our returning special day classes, the schedules were revised. These revisions for the Special Day Class instructional day and bell schedule can be found here.

NUSD District Office

Starting Monday, October 26, the NUSD District Office will follow safety precautions similar to our school sites. Upon arrival at the parking lot door, visitors will be greeted by one of our team members. For the safety of our staff and visitors, all visitors who enter the building will be required to wear a mask and go through other protocols similar to our school sites to help with potential contact tracing. Visitors will be escorted to and from any department(s) they may need to visit. While this will look different, please know that we are committed to a high level of customer service.

I appreciate all you are doing during this terribly difficult time. We can get through anything – Together.

Sincerely,

Kris Cosca

www.nusd.org/COVID

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