Dear Wornick Community,

The national and local COVID-19 numbers have continued to skyrocket since I last wrote to you. While there is concern across the country of hospitals and healthcare institutions being overwhelmed, there are continued positive signs including experts seeing milder symptoms and predictions that the apex of this wave will be reached in early January. The data continues to underscore the importance of vaccinations and that we need to buckle up for a couple of difficult weeks.

Testing For Return to School on Tuesday

Testing before returning to school is crucial so please ensure that if you haven't already picked up your test, you receive a PCR test either on campus (on Monday between 8:30-11:30am and you will test in the parking lot) or at a provider of your choosing. For those who picked up tests Friday and tested Sunday through CityHealth, tests must be returned to school by Monday at 11:30am to go to the lab. Please note, CityHealth wait times are long at the moment and they are going as fast as possible. Families are reporting waiting online for a testing slot for up to 90 minutes. Stay online. Repeated logging in slows down the process. PCR test results must be received by Monday night in order to attend school in person on Tuesday, January 4. Especially if your test results come in after 8pm on Monday night, please bring a physical copy of your negative test results on Tuesday morning if you tested outside of CityHealth.

I also want to let you know that since I last wrote to you, an increasing number of professionals, including classroom educators, and families have tested positive for COVID-19, despite taking precautions.

On Campus Learning

As an administration we have made the decision to keep our school open for on campus learning, in line with recommendations from San Mateo County Office of Education and San Mateo County Health. We will be doing so with fewer educators, but it appears that many of them will be able to return starting next week. We are prioritizing on campus learning and not shifting to remote learning, because we believe we have effective health and safety protocols in place, robust testing, vaccination rates in our county are at 94% of county residents 12 and over, and in-person learning is crucial for our students' social-emotional and academic development.

Here are some reminders and what to expect next week and in the coming weeks as we navigate this wave of COVID-19:

Your students will likely have substitute teachers. We will utilize four regular substitutes who have already worked at Wornick this year and are fully vaccinated (including boosters). If we have exhausted our substitutes, administrators like Ms. Haire, Mr. Eilath, Ms. Brouwer, Ms. Walklet, and others with classroom experience, may step into the classroom in addition to specialists. Quarantining teachers may join classrooms to teach remotely while a teacher or another Wornick staff member facilitates on campus learning.

• We will be extremely vigilant about health and safety measures. There will be strong enforcement of mask wearing both indoors and outdoors. Expect your student to be sent home if they are showing any symptoms, including mild ones. As a reminder, two consecutive days of negative antigen testing is required to return to school following symptoms, OR a single negative PCR test.
• Cohorts or grades may have to go remote for periods of up to ten days. If there is evidence of transmission in a cohort or a grade, or if we reach critical levels of not being able to staff a particular grade, we may send a cohort home for remote learning for ten days while staff and students complete their quarantine period. If schoolwide staffing is low, we will prioritize TK-2 on campus learning.
• Hybrid learning will be available for quarantining or symptomatic students. Students will be able to join via zoom from home if health and safety protocols prohibit them from attending school. We will not be able to send home materials. Our professionals will be working double time in these next few weeks and we are unable to support a material exchange or prepare materials for remote learners.
• No Chavurot this week; We will pause Chavurot that were planned for this Friday as many staff leaders may be out and we want to reduce sustained student mixing across grade levels where possible.

As we navigate through these next few weeks let's collectively do our best to prioritize the health and safety of our community and sustained on-campus learning. Even when times get tough, I'm asking you all to assume good will, and understand that educators and administrators are doing their best in these times. We will assume good will as well; we know how hard it is to navigate unpredictable schedules for parents and changing requirements. We have done this before and we can get through these times as a community.

L'shalom (Towards wholeness)

Adam Eilath