March 5, 2021
Good Afternoon Belmont-Redwood Shores Community,
Last night, the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District Board of Trustees, Cabinet, and over 250 members of our community had a productive conversation about our transition to in-person instruction as well as our return to school in the fall. A link to the audio recording of the Board meeting will be posted within 24 hours and can be found here.
We realize our process for spring return has not met the needs of all of our families. Please continue to share your change requests with your school principal. We are committed to finding potential solutions to support our families. Yesterday you should have received a message sharing the details of our process as well as some of our next steps. That message can be found here. Thank you in advance for your patience as we continue to make adjustments.
Our Board of Trustees directed administration to pursue reopening our schools for the 2021-22 school year to in-person teaching and learning to the fullest extent allowable by State and County Health mandates. Given that we expect 100% of our employees to be fully vaccinated we expect this means full in-person instruction with some mitigation measures in place, but that will be dependent upon what is allowed.
Please note the following schedule changes:
- On Thursday, March 11th, and Friday, March 12th District and site staff will provide asynchronous learning opportunities for all our students. All staff will be engaging in professional learning to prepare for our transition. This preparation includes additional COVID-19 protocol training, student roster finalization, and preparation time. Principals and teachers will be sending out additional information by mid-week.
- With our transition nearing, teachers will not be facilitating formal Spring Conferences. While the District calendar has identified March 9, 11, 12, 15 & 16 as minimum days for conferences, regular instructional days will be followed. I am confident that our staff will reach out to parents with any concerns that they may have. Likewise, I am confident that our staff will continue to work with parents to ensure the success of our students and answer any questions they may have.
You should have received an invitation from Parent Square to register and create an account. We will be using Parent Square for general communications, daily screening, and classroom teacher assignments prior to the designated opening date. We will be resending invitations to parents that have not already registered later this evening. Please check your spam folder if you have not received an invitation and register as soon as possible.
Thank you in advance for your continued support. Please continue reading for metric and vaccination updates, new District Covid-19 case tracing information, and a reminder to transition dates.
Sincerely,
Dan Deguara
Superintendent
County Health Metrics and Vaccination Update
San Mateo County continues to make progress towards the Orange Tier our adjusted case rate is now 4.0, which is a 1.6 point drop from last week. Another 0.1 point drop puts us in the Orange Tier metrics.
Our test positivity rate is down to 2.1%, just barely above the Yellow Tier metrics.
We continue making great progress in vaccination. By this Sunday, March 7th we anticipate that 82% of staff (certificated, classified, administrative, and sub pool) will have received their first vaccine! This is great progress and we hope to see this trend continue.
Tracking District-Wide Covid-19 Cases
Transition Timeline
As a reminder, we will be following the transition timeline below. Beginning Tuesday, March 16 (the earliest the County could move to the Orange Tier), the District will send a weekly update about whether we anticipate returning to in-person instruction on the following Monday. A staggered start for cohorts is part of BRSSD's Plan for Reopening that was approved by the County and is necessary to ensure that safety protocols are followed.
