YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Question: Why can't middle school students return to campus at the same time as the elementary students?
Answer: An important feature of our COVID-19 mitigation strategy includes "cohorting" - which means that students and teachers are assigned to a group and there is no mixing between these groups. In the event of a COVID-19 exposure, this strategy allows us to only have to close one classroom, rather than all of the classrooms in which the infected person had been. With students frequently changing classes, the middle school schedule is just not amenable to cohorting. Additionally, the middle school classrooms and hallways are much smaller than many of our other classroom spaces, and cannot accommodate the physical distancing that is required to keep students and teachers safe. We are eager to have our middle school students return once the pandemic conditions improve such that strict physical distancing is no longer required.
Question: Given the potential for the pandemic to worsen over the holidays, is GLOBE considering pushing the timeline back a few weeks?
Answer: We are closely watching the COVID-19 data in DeKalb, and know that it is likely that cases will continue to increase over the coming weeks. The timeline that has been presented is a tentative one - and can only be enacted if all of the thresholds for the pandemic conditions that we are tracking have been met. If it is determined that it is not safe to initiate the plan to have teachers return to school on January 4, we will hold off until the conditions have improved and it is safe to do so.
Question: Will there be an opportunity to select different hybrid schedule than the one that we are assigned?
Answer: It is critically important that we do not exceed the classroom capacity that is required to maintain appropriate physical distancing between students and teachers. The scheduling will be incredibly complicated, and we unfortunately cannot accommodate requests for alternate arrangements.