St. Mary’s Families,
As we know, there is no “one size fits all” approach when dealing with a pandemic. We are fortunate here at St. Mary’s that we have not seen the increased number of COVID-19 cases like many of the bigger school districts.
Because of our successes, and because of our disciplined approach to staying safe, we believe it is prudent to resume our in-person/remote hybrid learning strategy on Monday, November 30.
We worked diligently during this remote period to continue to improve our safety processes, and to continue to address any issues in the building, with the objective of keeping our students and our staff safe.
Now it's your turn. We are asking for your help. If a student is showing even MINOR signs and symptoms of ANY illness (including symptoms such as a minor sore throat, runny nose, or even congestion), please KEEP THEM HOME. Even if you think the symptoms are minor or are just seasonal allergies, please keep them home for at least a day and monitor.
If you have a college student returning home, please exercise caution and monitor for symptoms. Also, if someone in your home, or someone you would consider a close contact, is being tested for COVID, please have your student move to fully remote instruction while awaiting the test results.
As soon as we resume school after Thanksgiving break, we are moving to an online absence/illness log in the Infinite Campus student management system. There will be more details to follow, but we intend to use this data solely to better track illnesses. Your help with better tracking of symptoms and illnesses helps us keep the school open for what we all want: in-person education.
We are blessed to have Tara Cuccinelli, one of our diocesan school nurses, under contract to help us monitor this absence/illness log, answer COVID-19 questions for staff and parents, and be our expert point of contact with the local health department. We are hopeful that if we all do our part, we can keep everyone safe and keep our school open! In the meantime, please keep doing those things you are doing: wash your hands, wear your mask, keep your distance.
We are sharing a list of “COVID-19 myths and realities” from the Colorado Department of Public Health that you may find interesting and helpful.
Finally, MARK YOUR CALENDARS, we will host a Google Meet video town hall on Wednesday, December 2, at 6 pm, to discuss second semester plans and COVID-related issues.
Here is the link: meet.google.com/bgt-atuj-ety
We will send out reminders prior to the town hall.
Please have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all have much for which we can and should be thankful; and we are certainly grateful for all of you, our amazing St. Mary’s community!
Respectfully,
Deacon Rob Rysavy
President
Mr. Mike Biondini, ‘66
Principal