#WeAreFenton
November 16, 2020 Update
Transition to Remote Learning
November 16, 2020
Dear FAPS Families,
Last evening the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) announced a number of new restrictions to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. One of the new restrictions was the mandatory transition to remote learning for all high schools in Michigan effective Wednesday, November 18, 2020. The new restrictions articulate a need for school districts to assess their K-8 buildings with guidance from the county health department. Leading up to our return to in-person learning on October 1, 2020, and each week thereafter, I, along with the school board and the administration team, have been evaluating the factors below as it pertains to our ability to provide a consistent face to face instructional model with fidelity within a safe environment:
Appropriate K-12 Staffing
Community spread and the impact on the school community
Contact tracing
Expected trends
Mitigating the circle of exposure
Our goal through this pandemic has been to provide a quality education that is consistent and allows our students, families and staff to experience teaching and learning with the least amount of disruptions. To achieve that goal in the next few months, our high school students, along with our middle school students, will begin learning remotely on Wednesday, November 18, 2020.
Our Young 5’s and K-5 students will begin a remote schedule on Monday, November 23, 2020. Our target date for a return to face to face instruction is January 19, 2021 (Beginning of second semester).
The increasing cases of COVID-19 within our area continue to have a detrimental effect on the factors above at each of our school buildings. After assessing each factor and taking both the continuity of teaching and learning and the safety of our staff and students into consideration, Fenton Area Public Schools will transition all students to a remote learning schedule.
More information will be communicated by both the building administrators and your child’s teacher(s).
Along with face to face instruction, the restrictions communicated by MDHHS include all after school activities, clubs and athletics be suspended as well. The MHSAA communicated their restrictions last night and Mike Bakker, FAPS Athletic Director, sent out a letter to our student athletes and their families.
Since the shutdown of all schools across the state in March, there have been a number of tough decisions that have been made that include a process of reflection and foresight, analyzing of data and an understanding how both the FAPS staff and our FAPS families are placed in difficult situations every time we transition from one instructional model to another. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is not empathetic to these challenges.
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the factors listed below. We will continue to monitor and evaluate these factors along with the metrics the county and the state provide on a daily basis.
Appropriate K-12 Staffing
The last few weeks have become difficult to staff classrooms appropriately. As more teachers and support staff are quarantined, and guest teachers are becoming less and less available, we have had to transition a number of K-5 classrooms to a virtual setting. Our elective teachers have been covering classrooms which means our students are not receiving Art, Music or P.E. as they should. At the secondary level, teachers have to cover rooms during their prep time which takes away their time to prep for their own courses.
Community spread and the impact on the school community
As the cases of COVID-19 increase throughout the community, it has a direct impact on the school community. A good example of the connection between community spread and how it impacted the school setting is what occurred over the Halloween weekend. The uptick of cases outside the school community, led to a number of staff and students being quarantined by the health department. We expect the same trend for Thanksgiving and the December holiday season.
Contact tracing
We continue to experience a lag in contact tracing due to the number of cases increasing throughout the county. This has directly impacted our ability as school leaders to know who has tested positive or who was exposed to a positive case in a timely manner. Our administrative team continues to spend an enormous amount of time helping the health department to contact trace within the school setting and communicating with families that are impacted by a positive COVID-19 case. The lag in contact tracing could place our staff and students in an unsafe environment if people are attending face to face instruction before they are notified of the possible exposure by the county.
Expected trends
Both the state models and the expected trends by the county show an increase of cases throughout the next few months. While these trends may change, we, along with many other Genesee County school districts, know that cases will rise with indoor gatherings and the holiday season upon us. As cases rise, the factors listed here grow as barriers to face to face instruction.
Mitigating the circle of exposure
We have had over 30 positive cases within our school district since October 1st, and over 650 staff and students quarantined by the health department. As we follow the protocols of the COVID-19 Schoolkit, we have had a number of staff and students, not listed on our dashboard, that have been isolated due to COVID-19 symptoms or due to needing to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19 in a classroom, hallways or building.
As I stated in previous communications, we as a school community have worked together to return to school, experience in-person instruction and enjoy what we all want for our learners. Unfortunately, COVID-19 does not care what we want or what model of instruction we prefer. We will continue to evaluate the key metrics within the county, assess the key factors listed above and work together in order to return once again to in-person teaching and learning by our target date of January 19, 2021.
Knowing this transition to remote learning was a possibility, we are prepared to help with providing devices for our families (Chromebook Request Form), providing food for our families and helping in any way we can during these challenging times. More information will be shared on our Return to Learn web page and communicated by our building administrators.
Please click the links below to access our remote schedules.
Young 5’s: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13qhG5P6RBGwcU1JpSDrlhT7zJ3jomQZC1cAFu9pFok4/edit?usp=sharing
K-5th: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tt5D6-cxcH4lWfEG2sZVfdkPpAqpI5o71QWQAgR5kvk/edit?usp=sharing
6th-12th: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L1B-KiMRIMFtcAc6hPOvx1HFsZ2VTQMLh69h1Wf0dFY/edit?usp=sharing
Sincerely,
Dr. Adam Hartley
Superintendent
Fenton Area Public Schools
Food Distribution
Fenton High School and AGS Middle School students that have been moved to remote learning beginning Wednesday, November 18 can pick up their free meals Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the high school between 11:00 am -1:00 pm.
Please order those meals using the link below so we have enough meals prepared.
Select a 0 for Monday and Tuesday as you will have received your free meals for those days at school.
Fenton High School Meal Pick Up https://forms.gle/QZU4piE1Sy7aEZ8DA
Beginning Monday, November 23rd, meals may be picked up at Fenton High School, Tomek-Eastern Elementary, and North Road Elementary from 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
The links to these forms will open up on Friday, November 20th to order for the following week.
North Road Meal Pick Up https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf665eVWuk05tFqYZS_es1nrTkDzqW8_hV9agey0XAM0Blppw/closedform
Tomek- Eastern Meal Pick-Up https://forms.gle/vw1WuBPKDYW2YJi18
Fenton High School Meal Pick Up https://forms.gle/QZU4piE1Sy7aEZ8DA
This document contains other important food service information that may be helpful.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z-tHOGsCBYheTvIztO9D2i1R94cQK_BvtLTqsefxxNo/edit?usp=sharing