The purpose of this message is to provide an important update on the spread of COVID-19 in the Mequon-Thiensville School District community. District officials closely monitor the burden of community spread in Mequon and Thiensville zip codes in collaboration with the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department. Burden is defined as the total number of positive COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks.
As of Friday, October 16, the burden of both 53092 and 53097 zip codes registered at 335, trending toward the 350 threshold of very high risk.
What does this mean?
In preparation for the 2020-2021 school year, the District developed contingency scenarios to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, including a mechanism for identifying factors that will change our level of response to community and school-based cases of the virus. In alignment with the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department’s COVID-19 Decision-Making Framework for Schools, the MTSD’s Responsible Return Operating Plan includes a decision framework for assessing the risk associated with the community spread of COVID-19 in our community. Per these guidelines, when the burden reaches very high risk, the District will need to consider movement between instructional scenarios, resulting in a shift to Scenario D: Distance Learning for All Students. We are monitoring our community’s burden closely, and working with local health officials to determine if there is additional context with the recent increase in burden that can be realized. The health department’s database was updated over the weekend, and we are told we may not know any new information related to this data point until tomorrow, Tuesday, October 20.
We recognize some of our parents/guardians are also monitoring the community’s burden data, understanding the influence this decision-making factor has on our ability to continue providing on campus learning to our students. We are committed to transparent, timely communication and understand the impact shifting instructional scenarios has on our students and families. The health and safety of our students and staff members remains our top priority in assessing each of our decision-making factors.
We will continue to keep all school district families and staff members informed as we monitor the spread of COVID-19 in Mequon and Thiensville.
Thank you for your attention to this important update.
