Good Afternoon Springfield School District students, families, and staff,
It is Dr. McLaughlin, your superintendent. I have three updates for you as we head into the weekend. I have some information on our COVID status, school meals, and the superintendent search.
First, I wanted to give you an update in regards to the COVID-19 activity in our school community. We have had four additional cases since my last call. There were two new cases at Union Street School and two at Riverside. Three of those positive cases were not at school while infectious. They had been identified as close contacts and were in quarantine at home. One of the cases had limited close contacts and only affected a class that was already in quarantine.
I realize that having your children stay home when identified as close contacts can be frustrating; however, as I can report today, this can limit the spread of COVID-19 in the school community.
The state is working on ways to have students in school as much as possible when identified as close contacts by having a new school-based testing program. We are waiting to hear more information from the state regarding the program they are calling “Test to Stay.”
Just a reminder: If your child has any COVID-19 symptoms, please keep them home. In addition, the Vermont Department of Health is strongly recommending testing anyone with symptoms.
I can’t say it enough. I appreciate the effort you continue to make for the safety of our school community. In the end that will be a big factor in what we are able to do.
Second, we have new information about the availability of school meals. The district has worked with our food service company, the Abbey Group, to now make meal service possible for students who have to quarantine. If you would like to receive school meals for your quarantined student, please contact Elizabeth Grande, with The Abbey Group, at 802-376-0824 to place your order and arrange your pick-up time and location. The meal packets will consist of breakfast & lunch for each day of required quarantine.
Third, Springfield School District will be hiring a new Superintendent of Schools for the July of 2022. The School Board wants to have an inclusive process to make the best possible choice for the staff, students, families, and community members of Springfield. As part of that process, the board is creating a candidate screening committee. The job of this committee will be to vet the initial applicants for the position. At the completion of its work, the committee will forward multiple applicants to the school board for final consideration.
The committee will be composed of a combination of building administrators, central office staff, teachers, support staff, students, parents, and community members.
If you are interested in serving on the screening committee, please complete and submit the online form found at: https://tinyurl.com/SSDSuperScreening. Your submitted form will go Colleen Amaya at the central office. All interested parties should submit the form by no later than October 17th.
If you had a hard time writing down that web address, you can find it on all district websites under “news” and in the email that will come shortly from the district.
Happy Friday Cosmos. Here’s to a needed relaxing weekend for all of us.