Superintendent Communications 2021-2022

Dear West Hartford Community,

I hope that summer is treating you well. August is already here and I am thrilled to welcome new and returning families to our schools. I want all everyone to be aware of some important district protocols that will be in place as we begin the 2021-2022 school year. As we learned last year, nothing in this message is written in stone - our guidance will shift as facts on the ground change, and, hopefully, as the Delta variant passes. One thing that I want to be crystal clear about is that I do not anticipate a situation where we will move to remote or hybrid learning due to COVID this year. Being in person is just too important for learning, socialization, and the mental health of our children, and we have learned much over the past eighteen months about COVID, mitigation strategies, and how to safely operate our schools. Finally, a very large percentage of our students have been vaccinated, helping to keep them and their classmates safe. As vaccine approval comes for those under twelve in the next few weeks or months, we will once again do all that we can (including hosting vaccination clinics) to help get as many of our children vaccinated as quickly as possible.

There are many reasons for optimism as we begin another school year here in West Hartford. All of our students will be back in school. Lunch will be in the cafeteria or outside, not in the classroom. We will continue to utilize outdoor learning spaces that we have invested in. After school activities will return, and high school sports will start the year off with practices and conditioning before we return to classes. Meals will again be free, and we have computer devices for loan to any student that needs one. For parents at the high school level, the Board of Education voted in the spring to remove pay for play and student activity fees, and we hope that this will encourage every student to get actively involved.

The question that many have asked and are certainly passionate about, on both sides, is if there will be mandatory masking. Based on guidance from the Center for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the Department of Public Health, current case counts, and the Governor’s executive order that is still in effect, we will be starting the year with a mask mandate across all grades. This could shift during the year depending on many variables, and I expect that it will. For September, however, everyone in our schools and buses, regardless of vaccination status, will wear a mask. I wish this were not so, as there are certainly valid arguments that can be made that wearing a mask detracts in some ways from speech and language acquisition, and socialization. Those negatives, however, do not supersede the benefits of masking at this point. Having everyone in school, keeping people healthy, and limiting quarantines as much as possible have to be our primary objectives.

Some parents have been vocal that they will not allow their child to wear a mask in school. I need to be clear- this is not optional. Therefore, if any child refuses, parents will be called to come pick them up. Please, no matter how strongly you feel about this, do not put your child in this position. It makes it difficult for us to build the relationships that your child needs in order to feel safe, and to learn. It also pits the family versus the school, which is not good for any of us. We want this year to be the best year for all of our families and children, and to come back together as one community.

Each school principal will be sending a back-to-school message shortly. For a more in-depth look at our back-to-school guidance and policies, please see our Continuity of Services plan. Health and safety continue to be our number one priority. We have secured federal grants to invest in more teachers, smaller class sizes, tutors for math and reading, clinical supports for social and emotional wellness, and expanded after-school activities. Much of our work involves efforts around equity and belonging, to let every child know that they have a home in our school. This sentiment extends to our families, as well. We welcome and need your partnership. I am proud of what we have accomplished together during extremely trying times.

A new school year is a time of excitement, possibility, and hope. For those of you new to our community, or just entering kindergarten, thank you for choosing West Hartford. Raising our two children here and sending them to our schools was the best decision my wife and I ever made. Please enjoy the last weeks of summer, and I can’t wait to see you on September 1st!

Yours,

Tom

Hello all, I hope that this message finds you well. As the calendar turns to October, I want to reach out to thank you all for what has been a very good first month of school, and to update you on where we are as we move forward. It has been wonderful to welcome back all of our students, and to see an increase in enrollment in our elementary schools, as we meet many new neighbors who have moved to our community. We appreciate the faith that they, and all of you, show in West Hartford Public Schools. Thankfully, Connecticut and West Hartford in particular have begun to see not just a plateau, but a decline in cases of COVID, and there are good reasons for optimism for the rest of this school year.

Once again, while we see cases occurring among some of our students, we are still not seeing spread in our schools. Our mitigation strategies, including masking, are helping to keep disruptions to a minimum. One of the things that I am especially gratified by is our vaccination rate in grades 7-12, which at over ninety percent places us in the top five districts in the state, and the best in Hartford county. While we have seen some schools forced to cancel sports events due to the number of students in quarantine, our kids have been able to play all of their games without interruption. This high vaccination rate, both in our schools and in our community, will continue to serve us well as we move into the colder months.

A new strategy we announced to parents in grades K-6 last week is that we are partnering with the state to provide voluntary pooled testing for students. While this will inevitably lead to a higher identification of cases, it is yet another mitigation strategy for our district. Over 500 parents have signed their children up so far for the testing, which may begin as early as next week. We are hopeful that vaccinations for those under twelve will be approved soon, which will provide another level of safety. With well over 90% of all staff vaccinated, and the rest undergoing weekly testing, our schools are some of the safest places to be right now.

We certainly see some continuing impacts from the pandemic among our students, and not just in academic loss. Being in school every day is a challenge for some that are not used to it, and we need to be partners, as always, to be sure that we are providing all of the social and emotional supports that our children need. We have high expectations for behavior in our schools, and it is very important that we work together to protect all of our children, physically, emotionally, and socially. Please discuss positive behavior and expectations with your child and reach out to your child’s teacher or principal if needed, as these open discussions will serve your child well. 

I hope that you have a chance to enjoy the New England fall weather, perhaps at one of our many outdoor events or games. Again, we appreciate your support for the West Hartford Public Schools. 

Be Well,

Tom Moore

Dear West Hartford Community,

I wanted to reach out as we finish up vacation to clarify where we are currently in terms of COVID, and to reiterate our commitment to in-person learning as we head into what we know will be a difficult January. Many have asked over the past few days if we will be going remote for a week or two, or indefinitely to start the new year. West Hartford Public Schools will remain in person as we return next week, and unless there is a state-wide emergency order that closes school, we will be in session, as will other public schools in the state. The reasons for this are many, but the main one is that there is no substitute for in person learning, as we have seen all too well over the past twenty months.

I understand why some would prefer us to set up another remote learning option. We simply cannot do that. The state of Connecticut does not consider remote learning as an alternative this year to in-school days, and any remote days for the district would need to be made up. We also do not have the staffing necessary to set up a large scale remote learning school like we did last year. For those sick or in quarantine, we will continue with the same options we had in the fall, for tutoring at the elementary level and remote sign in at the secondary level. The CT Department of Public Health is evaluating the recent CDC changes in light of their existing school quarantine guidance. If this guidance changes, we will share this immediately with you. Until this time, our current requirements remain in place.

We will ramp up our mitigation efforts due to the high transmissibility of omicron. We will once again focus on providing spacing when possible, reinforce the importance of mask wearing, and reiterate our guidance to all that if your child shows any symptoms of illness, please keep them home. We do have some good news that we will be getting a shipment of N-95 masks that we will distribute to staff and students. The other good news is that we have learned much since the start of the pandemic in terms of spread and schools. We have obviously done a lot of contact tracing, and the school as a nexus for large scale spread has not been a factor. While there has certainly been some school level transmission, the vast majority of spread we see has been family or neighborhood based. If everything was going into lockdown, it might make some sense to close schools for a period of time. In our current reality, however, if our kids would then just be forced to gather together as their parents went to work, or would hang around with their friends in non-school settings, the loss of in-person learning is just too great a cost.

Finally, please join me in thanking our staff, at all levels. The next few weeks will be difficult with large numbers of absences. This has been the case all year, and while in many sectors of our economy people have been able to work from home, for the past year and a half our cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals, teaching assistants, office staff, nurses, security guards, bus drivers, custodians, administrators and teachers have come to work every day in service to the children of West Hartford. I am proud to be their colleague. I am hopeful that this wave will pass quickly, as I know it creates great stress for all of us who have lost family and friends to this disease. We are all tired, and 2021 did not provide the return to normal that we had hoped for. As we enter 2022, I hope that we can do it with resolve, and a commitment towards treating each other with kindness, compassion, and dignity. 

Be Well,

Tom

Dear West Hartford Community,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to write to try and clarify some points regarding the governor’s press conference this week, and the vote in the legislature regarding extending the governor’s executive orders. Here is what I know that might clear up some things:

• If the extension is voted down, the order for mandatory masking in schools will end next week. The extension was approved by the House, and awaits a Senate vote next week.
• If the executive order is extended, masking orders for public school extend beyond next week. The executive order actually empowers the education commissioner, in consultation with the commissioner of the Department of Public Health, to decide on whether or not to institute a mask mandate. This week, Charlene Russell-Tucker, Connecticut’s Education Commissioner, and Dr. Manisha Jhutani, the commissioner of the Department of Public Health, have stated that if this happens, they will recommend mandatory masking in Connecticut’s schools continue until the end of February.
• Based on either scenario, mandatory masking in Connecticut’s public schools ends within the next month, unless a local Board of Education creates a new mask mandate.

Many have written to me this week to let me know their thoughts on masks in school. There is no one unified opinion, be it among parents, teachers, or students. The reality now is that the Department of Public Health has stated that in many places in Connecticut, it is the right time, and safe, to move away from mandatory masking. When we look closer at the situation here in West Hartford, I am so thankful for all that has been done by our community in order to make our children and families safer. Our vaccination rates are within the top five of any community in the state, far outperforming state and national averages for school aged children:

• 94% of our 12-17 year olds are fully vaccinated, with over 98.5% having had at least one shot.
• 64% of our 5-11 year olds have already had their first shot, and almost 60% have had two shots.

With these high vaccination numbers, and with cases plummeting in our schools (out of over 11,000 staff members and students, we currently have a dozen cases), as well as the immunity gained by so many having been exposed to omicron, March should be a time when West Hartford Public Schools can move to optional mask wearing.

For almost two years, we have dealt with COVID, its variants, and the multiple impacts it has had on our children, our staff, and our entire community. When we began the year, I hoped we would soon move away from masks, but then delta and omicron made that unwise. As we look to the future with COVID, and beyond the pandemic phase, we assume that there will be more hills and valleys. When things are better, though, I believe it is best for our students to strive for as much normalcy as possible. I know that if things take a turn for the worse in terms of case numbers, hospitalizations, or dangerous new variants, our Board of Education will convene and create a new mask mandate for West Hartford Public Schools, as the decision is ultimately theirs.

We will maintain other mitigation strategies, continue to report cases on our dashboard, and as weather warms, again utilize our outdoor spaces. Our voluntary asymptomatic testing program also continues. It is completely understandable that many students and staff will still be wearing masks for a variety of reasons, and no one in our community should feel uncomfortable in choosing to wear a mask. We will continue to have surgical and N-95 masks available for students and staff who request them. Our teachers have a remarkably difficult job in educating our children, and, with optional mask wearing, enforcing mask wearing will not be in their list of so many vital tasks. As transportation is covered under different federal guidance, students and adults will still be required to wear masks on our school buses.

More information and specifics will follow in the coming days and weeks, when we know more about exactly what the legislation says. Before then, however, I wanted you to have this information about how we intend to move forward. As always, thank you for your partnership and support of our children.

Be Well,

Tom Moore

Dear West Hartford Community,

Given the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines, at-home testing, and declining case counts and hospitalization, the Connecticut Department of Public Health has directed communities to transition the management of COVID-19 in schools from a pandemic emergency response model towards a more standard public health approach to the management and control of respiratory viral diseases. When applied in the PreK-12 school setting, this focuses more on responding to clusters of cases, outbreaks, evidence of ongoing transmission in schools, and/or significant increases in community transmission risk, and relies less on individual case investigation, contact tracing, and quarantining of staff and students following school exposures. 

Consistent with this guidance, masks will be optional in West Hartford Public Schools beginning Monday, February 28th, although mask-wearing is still recommended as an additional layer of protection. Masks are still required in all indoor school settings through February 27th. 

There are cases where masks are still required. It is still mandatory to wear a mask from day 6-10 when returning to school after a positive Covid case. Additionally, current federal requirements require masks on buses/vans through March 18.

We will maintain our other layered mitigation strategies, continue to report cases on our dashboard, and as weather warms, again utilize our outdoor spaces. Parents should also continue following the daily health screening and consult with their school’s nurse if their student is ill. While we will discontinue individual contract tracing under this guidance, our voluntary asymptomatic testing program continues and provides an option for student testing each week. It is completely understandable that many students and staff will still be wearing masks for a variety of reasons, and no one in our community should feel uncomfortable in choosing to wear a mask. We will continue to have surgical and N-95 masks available for students and staff who request them.

We also continue to have self-tests available upon request from our schools and are receiving an additional shipment from the CT Department of Education next week to distribute to families and staff members. COVID-19 testing kits are also available in pharmacies or online. We encourage staff and students to self-test anytime they are symptomatic or believe they may have been exposed, and if desired, prior to the lifting of universal indoor masking. 

Lastly, please keep in mind as we enter this mask-optional period, if the data indicates a surge in community spread or information suggests an active outbreak among students or staff, there is an option of establishing a temporary universal masking policy for students and staff at the school or district level.

CT Department of Public Health February 18, 2022 Guidance

Thank you for your continued cooperation and support.

Andy Morrow

Assistant Superintendent for Administration

I hope that you are enjoying the warm weather as we approach the last weeks of the school year and have had the opportunity to enjoy the sports and activities that mark the spring season in our schools. The West Hartford-Bloomfield Health District has sent out a message to residents explaining that Connecticut is currently experiencing a surge in COVID cases, and they are urging people to take personal precautions to stay safe. These precautions include the continued recommendation to wear a mask in indoor settings and in crowded outdoor activities. We continue to support and encourage all WHPS students and adults to wear a mask in school buildings and settings to help our community stay safe. Masks and home test kits are available to all students and families at schools upon request.  

Vaccination is also recommended, and while we are no longer hosting separate student clinics, West Hartford-Bloomfield Health District holds weekly COVID vaccination clinics by appointment at its Bloomfield offices located at 580 Cottage Grove Road, Suite 100. The Moderna vaccine is administered on Wednesdays, 9AM to 12PM, and the Pfizer vaccine on Thursdays, 9AM to 2:30PM. Please call 860-561-7900 to schedule your appointment. In addition, DPH and Griffin Health will be offering vaccinations at Celebrate West Hartford on June 11th and 12th.

Thank you again for your cooperation and support.

Andy Morrow
Assistant Superintendent for Administration