Superintendent's Update on Reopening the Bedford Schools ~ July 24, 2020

Thank you to everyone who attended our webinars on Tuesday and Thursday evening. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear from you and to understand your thoughts about reopening. For those who were not able to attend, we will make them available on the website soon. For those who did not get your question answered, we are working to create a FAQ document that we will also post.

Thank you too to everyone who took the time to take our parent/guardian survey. We had over 1,700 responses. As soon as we have compiled the data we will share it with you so that you may see what other parents and guardians are thinking about re-opening. As I mentioned Tuesday and Thursday, I expect that the survey and the forum questions will lead us to another shorter survey in the coming days. Additionally, the teachers have conducted a survey of the faculty and it has been a wonderful source of information that also helps as we plan what reentry looks like.

I would like to give you a sense of our timeline moving forward.

Our plan is to complete a preliminary document as soon as Tuesday, present it to the District Reopening Task Force on Wednesday, and then to the School Committee at a meeting the first week of August. As I mentioned, we continue to receive guidance from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. This week we received guidance on transportation, facilities, and emergency preparedness. Links for those are below. We also received a number of research articles, scientific studies, [as well as] magazine and newspaper articles from interested and dedicated community members. We appreciate this flow of information in our ever-changing approach to the safe reopening of schools.

I do want to take a moment to thank everyone for their patience. Due to the cooperative and collaborative nature of our process, it may take us a little longer than some other communities to develop our plan. Our plan is being developed in a spirit of cooperation among all of our stakeholders which is so very important in these difficult times. What we may lose in speed I believe we more than make up for in unity and togetherness.

Finally, we also received a short video from DESE that features members of the department’s medical advisory team. I have included the link here for your convenience: DESE Doctors On Back To School In MASS.

The next two weeks will be of the utmost importance and I will be sure to stay in touch with you as our plan develops.

Thank you for your patience, your participation, and your continued commitment to our schools.

Wishing you continued health.

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