Dear Walnut Valley Educational Community,

To begin, I sincerely hope that you and your family are healthy during these most unprecedented times.  

As a parent of students and the spouse of a teacher, my highest priority is the safety and well-being of our students and staff … not only their physical and emotional well-being, but also the experience of a high quality academic and educational experience.  Furthermore, as part of a family with both parents working outside the home, I empathize with the struggles of families, parents, and educators when students are not physically present in school … both academically and logistically.

I also know that the manner in which we re-open our schools on August 10 is of utmost importance to you … as it is to me as well.  I understand that it causes anxiety, as well as frustration, to not yet know what that re-opening will look like at this time.

 As we have shared in the past, we rely on the Los Angeles County Public Health to provide us with guidance, direction, and recommendations on how we must proceed.  At this point, we have not received those guidelines from Public Health.  They were initially going to be released over a week ago, but Public Health decided to wait a while longer until they gathered additional and perhaps more up-to-date data in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While we too are anxious to determine and announce what our re-opening will look like, we also feel that it would be irresponsible to make those decisions prior to analyzing the guidelines and recommendations from Los Angeles County Public Health.  

What we are doing, however, is preparing for multiple scenarios so that we are ready to make an informed decision with an implementation plan for when Public Health announces its guidelines (hopefully in the next week or so).  I appreciate the partnership and collaboration with over 200 members of our Task Force and Focus Groups on Re-Opening Schools, our employee associations, and our community in gathering meaningful feedback and developing high quality plans.  I also appreciate the more than 6,000 parents who have completed our survey and thus voiced their opinions. 

Again, while we are unclear as to exactly which plan we will implement at this time, as previously shared, we have three broad approaches that we are developing:

·       Full-time, traditional, in-person instruction  (while implementing Public Health recommended safety protocols to the best of our ability)

·       Split-schedule approach where approximately half of the students in a particular class/school attend two days per week (the other half of the students attend a different set of two days per week), while working from home on the other days, in an attempt to minimize the people on campus and an increased practice of social distancing (while implementing Public Health recommended safety protocols to the best of our ability)

·       100% Distance Learning approach (adhering to new state guidelines for high-quality instruction and student accountability)

We are also working on a plan to allow students (with health and/or family considerations) to opt into a 100% Independent Study/Distance Learning approach if we choose to implement a full-time or split-schedule in-person approach.

The other consideration is to start the school year with one of the three approaches above, but only for a relative short period of time (perhaps a month) and then reassess the data, study the effects of different implementation plans from surrounding school districts, and evaluate possible updates and revisions to recommendations from Public Health and then adjust our plan accordingly.

We know that during this time of uncertainty, as observed just this week in Los Angeles County and across the state, even the best laid plans are subject to change.  We recognize that this situation is extremely fluid and we are continually monitoring the data and direction of our public health officials.

Again, we hope to provide additional clarity and direction to you in the near future.

As always, please feel free to contact me with questions and/or concerns.

Sincerely,

Bob

Robert P. Taylor, Ed.D.

Superintendent

Walnut Valley Unified School District

敬爱的核桃谷教育社区，

首先，在这深具挑战的时期，我衷心希望您和您的家人安康。

身为家长，自己的配偶也是老师，我最优先考虑的就是学生和教职员工的安全和福祉……不仅是他们的身体和心里的健康，还包括高质学术和教育经验。再者 ，当学生不在学校……无论是在学术上还是在运筹方面，同属于父母双方都在外面工作的家庭群之一的我对家人，父母和教育工作者的挣扎深感同情。

我也知道， 8月10日我们学校要如何重新开放，对您来说至关重要…对我也是。然而到现在都 还不知道重新开放会是什么样子，当然会让人有焦虑和沮丧感。

如同我们过去与您分享的，有关如何进行下一步， 我们一直都是遵循洛杉矶县公共卫生部门为我们提供的指导，方向和建议。然而目前，我们尚未收到公共卫生部门的指导方针。本来在一周前他们就说要发布，但最后决定再等待，直到他们收集到有关COVID-19大流行更多，又更新的数据。

尽管我们也急于确定并想宣布重新开放的模式，但在分析洛杉矶县公共卫生部门的指导方针和建议之前做出这些决定，我们也不认为是负责任的。

无论如何，我们还是要为多种可能的情况做准备，以便当公共卫生部门宣布其准则（希望是在下周左右）时，我们就能明智地决定出可实施的计划。 感谢与我们的工作团队和学校重启焦点小组，我们的员工协会以及我们社区一共200多个成员之间的共同合作与协商，以收集有意义的反馈并制定高质量的计划。 对6,000多位家长完成问卷调查，表达他们的意见，我也致上最深的谢意。

虽然我们不清楚现在将执行哪个计划，如先前所分享的那样，我们正在开发三种主要模式： 

• 全日制，传统式，面对面教学（在能力所及的范围内实施公共卫生部门建议的安全规则）

• 分开上课日模式：特定班级/学校中大约一半的学生每周两天上课（另一半学生每周不同的两天上课），而另一天则在家中工作，这是为了 减少校园中的人数， 并加强社交疏远的要求（同时尽我们最大能力实施公共卫生部门建议的安全规则）

• 100％远程学习模式（遵守有关州政府对高质量教学和学生问责制的新指南）

如果我们最终的选项是全日制或分开上课日的面对面学习模式； 我们还在进行一项计划，允许学生（考虑到健康和/或家庭因素）选择100％独立学习/远程学习模式。

 另一个考量也可能是学年一开始先棌用上述三种模式之，但只实行短暂时段（可能是一个月），然后重新评估数据，研究周围学区的不同实施计划的效果，以及评估公共卫生部门更新和修订的建议，然后再相应地调整我们的计划。

在这个不确定的时期，我们知道，即使是最合理的计划也可能会发生变化，就像本周在洛杉矶县和全加州范围内所观察到的。 我们认知这种情况的非稳定性，对公共卫生官员的数据和方向，我们会继续注意。

再次希望在不久的将来，我们能为您提供更多具确定性的资讯和方向。

与往常一样，如有任何问题和疑问，请随时与我联系。

此致,

Bob

Robert P. Taylor, 教育博士.

总监

核桃古联合学区