Welcome Back Message from Superintendent Daly
After a well-deserved summer break we are excited to welcome our students and staff back to the North Reading Public Schools. As always, we are committed to the pursuit of excellence for all of our students and look forward to exploring the most innovative and exciting pathways for student learning.
This year there will be some slight changes at all of our schools as well as continued adjustments to our procedures due to COVID-19.
Busing, Drop-off, and Pick Up
Schedule adjustments at all five schools have allowed us to create two tiers of start and end times, one for elementary and one for secondary. This has allowed us to implement later start times for middle and high school students and a uniform schedule for elementary students and staff at all three schools.
As we do at the beginning of every year we ask for your patience as our bus drivers adjust to the new routes. In addition, we have introduced new drop-off and pick-up traffic patterns at the middle/high school campus that will address some long standing safety concerns and provide additional options for quick-drop off in the lower lot as well as an extended loop in front of the middle/high school.
It is extremely important that everyone follow the procedures as designed and, again, we appreciate your patience as we implement these changes. We will make adjustments, if necessary, once we have observed the process over the first few weeks of school.
COVID-19 Protocols
As everyone is now aware, due to recent requirements, all students and staff in our schools, K-12, will be wearing facial coverings until at least October 1, 2021. As that date approaches we will be communicating more about any changes that would be forthcoming. We are also aware of concerns surrounding the metrics used to make those decisions and we will be following this information very closely in order to make the best recommendations to our school committee.
We will resume using the daily health screener for everyone and ask that this be completed before you arrive on the bus or on campus each day. We will also continue to provide updates on positive cases in our schools through our data dashboard as well as through email updates. In addition, we will continue to offer optional free COVID-19 vaccination clinics for any students twelve and older at the Batchelder School. The next clinic is September 15, 2021 from 6pm to 7pm. Click here to register.
COVID-19 Testing
If you have not had the chance to review the video and slides that were sent last week please take a moment to do so. I would like to clarify that all testing is optional (symptomatic, test and stay, and routine COVID safety checks) but we are asking that everyone complete both the CIC consent form and our NR form in order to either opt-in or opt-out of testing.
I would also like to clarify that the “test and stay” option is only available to those close contacts who are identified at school. If someone is identified as a close contact at home they would not be eligible for this option and would follow the quarantine procedure as communicated by the public health nurse.
We are very pleased that in many ways we will be returning to a typical school year with students present in school five days each week and all athletic and extracurricular programs operating as they would in a typical year, with a few additional COVID-19 requirements in place for safety. Our teachers, administrators, and staff have worked hard all summer to prepare our classrooms and we are so excited to see our students on September 8th.
Thank you,
Dr. Daly
