By DR. DEREK ARROWOOD
Heights Superintendent
Here is the link for the much-anticipated HHSC COVID-19 School Re-Entry Guidelines & Expectations Plan. This document will also be posted on our website.
Our reopening plan is a culmination of an incredible amount of work in gathering the best practices, recommendations, input, and creative thinking in order to reopen our buildings to in-person classes. As you can imagine, this was a difficult and challenging task, months in the making.
The plan has been designed to be fluid and flexible, lifts the best possible practices for implementation, and outlines the effective safety measures and protocols that will help minimize the risk and potential spread of COVID-19. It’s also not perfect, will continue to be a work in progress, and will not please everyone. In fact, members of our Re-Entry Task Force didn’t agree on everything included in the document. However, at the end of the day, we were able to create a plan that we believe will help us better navigate our way through a completely new era of education.
I am extremely proud of the end result and of our entire Re-Entry Task force comprised of teachers, administration, the Hamilton County Health Department, and the School Board. We are also grateful to our parents who shared their input through the survey and ongoing communications with the district to enable us to construct the type of re-entry plan that will allow us to remain strong in our values, mission, and goal of providing an inspiring and engaging learning environment for our students and staff.
I do want to emphasize again that to ensure the success of this plan and the safety of our students and staff, we will need to continue to work together and follow the recommended safety protocols and prevention measures, whether we agree in full, in part, or not at all, with what we have initially outlined in our plan.
As a reminder, don’t forget to read and sign the COVID-19 Guideline & Expectation Agreement. Thanks to your input, we adjusted the document to reflect our intended purpose as it relates to COVID-19. Click here to read and sign if you have not done so already.
We look forward to welcoming all students to in-person classes beginning on Tuesday, Aug. 11, unless a Remote Learning Form has been completed and submitted by a parent/guardian. This form will be sent to all parents/guardians on Monday, July 20. Kindly complete and electronically submit this form by Sunday, July 26 if your student is unable to return to school in person.
We appreciate your continued patience as we navigate through the challenges brought forth by this pandemic. The protocols and practices as outlined in our re-entry plan help ensure that our staff and students can return to school in the safest, least disruptive, and most productive manner possible.
#WeAreHuskies