October 16, 2020
Independence Schools Families,
I hope this update finds you well and your October has felt somewhat “normal” while enjoying the beauty of the season! I can promise you that all of us in the Independence Local Schools have appreciated our first quarter of school more than you know. The harsh reality of Covid-19 and past and potential future shut-downs have us all thankful for the time we are getting to spend in our schools. I also know our virtual teachers in the I-Pride Academy are appreciating the new and innovative ways they are connecting with our students as well!
As you may have heard, yesterday Governor DeWine announced that Cuyahoga County had moved back to “red” in the Ohio Public Health Advisory System. While our district schooling option planning is not directly linked to the color coding, this is definitely an indicator we monitor in assessing the health and safety and how viable of an option our in-person instruction continues to be. A continuing trend towards or into purple could have implications for in-person instruction and student activities.
Our most relevant data comes from our active cases in Independence, which Fire Chief Rega shares with me weekly. We currently have less than 20 active cases in our city, as monitored by the CCBOH. (For reference, we had between 40 and 50 active cases during the early weeks of September). We also have 1 school-related student case we are monitoring, per the quarantine update last week. Our local data and community-spread numbers are favorable and indicate we are in a relatively sound position to stay open for in-person instruction and continue on with our student activities. This status could change with one bad phone call about local infections or quarantine protocols - as other districts have seen. We continue to count each day we are open for business, each event our students can participate in, as a victory.
While things may have that “normal” feel, please remember in all that you do, your health and safety and the health and safety of our students remains a priority. What we’re doing - being open for school - is just too important for us not to be careful, not to continue our health assessments, our symptom protocols, our “stay home” processes, our masks policies, our virtual meeting guidelines. Please continue to be diligent in your family and personal life so we can keep our kids as engaged as possible.
Thank you for being so understanding and supportive during our reopening.
On a final note - I want to give a shout out to our IHS Ladies Golf Team at the State Tournament today and tomorrow in Columbus! Go Blue Devils!
Your partner in education,
Ben Hegedish
Superintendent
