August 10, 2020
Families,
Despite our best efforts to provide options for our learners that would best serve their needs, we have no choice but to follow the recommendations, guidance, and mandates of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Health, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
At approximately noon today, all school districts in PA received guidelines from PDE outlining the circumstances under which schools should move to a partly online, or completely online model of instruction. Under these new guidelines, PDE is identifying all schools in Indiana County as "moderate risk," and recommending they move to a model involving at least half-time virtual learning for all students. Based on the Department’s data, 42 out of 67 (63%) total counties (including Indiana) in the Commonwealth fall under this designation of “moderate or severe risk” (blended/full remote learning).
Obviously, having just received this information, we have several questions and concerns we need to have addressed by PDE before we move forward. We wanted to inform you as soon as possible that we are currently making plans to move to our yellow or red phase plan. As you can imagine, this will require some additional planning to make sure we select the most appropriate path moving forward as things have drastically changed since our previous correspondence.
In closing, I realize this may make our previously scheduled town halls for the next two evenings less beneficial than originally planned. Due to the late hour, principals will still be holding the meetings; however, please understand that they will be unable to discuss specifics about the new course of action, as we simply have not had time to make a plan.
Please know that we understand your frustration with this situation and will do our absolute best to get you the updated plans as soon as possible.
Michael J. Vuckovich
Superintendent of Schools