Recommendations & Requirements

Provide guidance to school leaders for recruiting, interviewing, and hiring staff remotely.

Ensure that every student:

• Has access to standards-aligned, grade-level instruction, including strategies to accelerate student learning;
• Is assessed to determine student readiness to engage in grade-level content;
• Is offered scaffolds and supports to meet their diverse academic and social-emotional needs"

Review student data to identify overall trends and gaps in student learning to design systemic supports and interventions.

Conduct a review of each students’ IEP in partnership with teachers and parents to reflect each student’s evolving needs based on time away from associated services including OT, PT, and Speech while school buildings were closed.

Build and send back to school communications to all relevant stakeholders (i.e., parents or guardians, school staff) and include updates across all workflows.

Verify that student and staff handbooks and planners are printed and ready for distribution. Create a master list of any changes to distribute at the first staff meeting.

Determine and activate structures outside of the regular school day, such as summer learning options, extended day, and after-school programming, to potentially be leveraged to support students in need of additional support.

If hybrid, activate plans to monitor and assess the following:

• Connectivity and Access
  • Ensure that all students and families have adequate connectivity and the devices necessary to successfully engage in and complete schoolwork.
• Attendance
  • Develop systems to monitor and track students’ online attendance on a daily basis.
• Student Work:
  • Teachers will assess the quality of student work and provide feedback to students and families.
  • Students will self-assess the quality of work, reflect on teacher feedback, and learning progress."

Provide adequate time for schools and educators to engage in:

• Intentional curriculum planning and documentation to ensure stability of instruction, whether school buildings are open or closed;
• Identify students who potentially need additional support;
• Share knowledge and ideas around the use and effectiveness of digital tools and resources that support remote learning.
  Create a plan for professional learning and training, with goals to:
  "- Offer restorative supports for teachers and learning around equity and implicit bias, social-emotional learning, and culturally
  responsive education;"
• Train school leaders and teachers thoroughly in the chosen digital systems and tools and their use;
• Build school leaders’ and teachers’ capacity to design and develop blended and remote learning experiences that are equitable and engaging.

Students who develop a fever or become ill with COVID-19 symptoms at school should wear a mask and be transported by their parent or guardian, emergency contact, or ambulance if clinically unstable, for off-site testing.

Symptomatic students and staff sent home from school should be kept home until they have tested negative for COVID-19, or have been released from isolation according to CDC guidelines.

In the event of a lab or clinically diagnosed case of COVID-19, immediate efforts should be made to contact any close contacts (those who spent more than 15 minutes less than six feet in close proximity to the student or staff member) so that they can be quarantined for 14 days at home. Students and staff should be closely monitored for any symptoms of COVID-19. At this time, empiric testing of all students or staff members in the class is not recommended. Only those that develop symptoms require testing for COVID-19.

• If the person was in the school building without a facial covering, or large areas of the school were exposed to the person, short term dismissals may be required to clean and disinfect the larger areas. This decision must be made in concert with the local public health department.