Podcast for August 28

 Click below to tune in to our UHS Spartan Podcast for August 28:

Weekly News and Notes, August 28

 Greetings,

We have a few updates from UHS this week, as we prepare to welcome our staff back next week, in finalizing some other details for the start of the school year.

Grade 8 Orientation

Information regarding grade 8 orientation was shared earlier this week. One of the questions that came up was if students who are going to be fully remote should come to the orientation event. The short answer is that this is an individual decision. We certainly welcome everyone, and it is nice to put faces next to names and to have you hear from us. However, we also understand that some families may be hesitant, and we appreciate that as well. We will be working to share all the information, regardless.

Athletics Update

The MIAA published sport modifications for the fall sports, and we are processing all of these details in order to prioritize safety for the coming season. We will, as a league, be working on geographic pods that minimize cross-over and travel in the coming season, and we are also intending on being consistent as a league with respect to start dates for sports. Right now, our priority is getting our staff and students back into the building, and then we will hopefully have opportunities for athletics and extracurricular activities to start safely. We appreciate your patience as we work with our fellow member schools and the district and state as a whole.

Cohorts

Our intention is to release cohorts next week. Letters will be sent home documenting the cohort, which should also be visible on iStudent and iParent. We realize that there may be some family situations with respect to other schools to which we are not privy. If there is a mistake - meaning children from the same household have been assigned to different cohorts - please reach out to us directly, and we will remedy the situation. While we have some classes and areas where the numbers could be impactful due to space considerations, we will do our best to be accommodating to families. Please do not change cohorts without confirmation from school administration.

Finally, these past few months have been fraught with a variety of challenges for us all: personal, professional, emotional, economic, medical. Many people have called, emailed privately, or posted very publicly on social media their thoughts, opinions, and considerations, relative to everything from classroom safety, to the role of educators, to concerns about academic progress and post-secondary planning. There has been anger, frustration, sadness, impatience, and guilt. 

As principal, I take the responsibility of safety - academic, emotional, and physical - to heart. To those ends, I can assure you that our teams have worked tirelessly to make sure that psychological, emotional, physical, and academic safety remain priorities amidst conditions that I never could have imagined possible. We commit to that safety whether students and staff come through our doors occasionally, daily, or not at all - and regardless of the place in which they will learn. We commit to that safety knowing full well the fear that some of our professionals have in coming to work, knowing that there is no way we can only mitigate risk. And we commit to these next couple of weeks, in designing learning for our students that is robust, authentic, connection-focused, and aligned with the very excellence our community has come to expect from this school. In so doing, we know we can put the feelings of anger and angst to rest, and replace them with that same pride, accomplishment, and spirit that is a hallmark of our work together at UHS.

Feel free to reach out with any questions. We look forward to seeing staff and students back in our building very soon.

Grade 8 Orientation

Good afternoon,

With each passing day (if not hour) we get closer in terms of our preparation for the coming year. We know there is always a bit of anxiety when students start a new school, and so we strive to help ease that tension from both students and families, even as we understand that this year brings with it some new challenges for us all.

We appreciate your patience as we delayed our typical orientation days for grade 8 students. As opposed to scheduling these during the day, when families may have difficulty with transportation or work responsibilities, we are scheduling our orientations for three different times next week, with an alphabetical sort governing our groups:

September 2: Last names A-G, 5-6:30 p.m.

September 3: Last names H-P, 5-6:30 p.m.

September 3: Last Names Q-Z, 7:00-8:30 p.m.

If you cannot make the time established for you, please reach out to us at the high school so we can try to assign to another cohort. We are trying to manage times.

Some guidelines:

1. To accommodate distancing and safety, we are asking that students and only one parent/guardian attend.

2. All attendees must wear a mask. 

3. All attendees must practice physical distancing. While family members may sit in adjacent seats, three empty chairs should be left between families, even if you have a known comfort level with the friend.

4. All attendees should complete a self-check before entering a school building. Those with fever greater than 100.4, congestion, dry cough, breathing difficulties, sore throat and/or chills should NOT enter our school buildings or offices.  It is extremely important that you do NOT come to our schools or offices if you are sick. 

The program will spend about 45-60 minutes in the auditorium, and then we will allow families some time to walk around the building, students to find classrooms, etc. The hallways and stairs are set up for specific transit, and this will enable students to get a sense of how to best traverse the building as well.

We will post all materials that we cover online sometime after the event, as well as some questions that get brought up by those who attend.

We look forward to seeing you soon and welcoming the Class of 2025 to UHS!

Weekly News and Notes

 Greetings, everyone.

We are in the final stages on planning for the 2020-21 school year. First off, thank you to everyone for your patience as we navigate these uncharted waters. We are doing our best to work quickly but thoughtfully through a variety of steps that need to be finalized before both staff and students report. Fortunately, we are confident in our planning and ability to maintain safety to the best of our abilities, and we will be communicating out some final steps in these next couple of weeks.

Cohort Assignments

If families have not yet indicated whether they intend to be in-person or remote, they will be called early next week. Fortunately, most of our families have responded - some multiple times! From there, we will be building our cohorts in concert with the other schools, with the priority of keeping families together. That being said, we need to be mindful of class sizes and equity, so we will do our best to make sure that we keep our cohorts aligned and even.

Because of the complexities of a high school schedule, we cannot guarantee any requests.

Schedule Changes

Should any schedule changes be necessitated by cohort assignments, we will be sure to notify those students individually. Right now, our priority remains to keep as many courses as possible running, and making the appropriate accommodations for those that have shared equipment or nuances that require additional supports.

High Need Cohort

For students identified as being part of a high-need cohort, communication will be sent in the coming week. These are students prioritized, due to disability status or specific needs, for in-person learning on all five days of the week.

Athletics

While there are those who were no doubt excited by the MIAA's announcement mid-week about athletics for the coming year, there are many steps that still need to be followed. First, we are awaiting individual sport committee recommendations to the Sports Medicine Committee, which will then make final determinations to be voted on by the Board of Directors. Those will then have to be implemented by the individual schools with respect to the sports and their respective safety plans.

At the same time, we need to design plans for scheduling and game play at our local level, while communicating with coaches all safety precautions. Similarly, there will be specific plans for attendance at games, which will be limited this year and far different than what was done in the past. Parent responsibilities regarding sports will also be different, particularly as we consider the safety of all student-athletes and subsequently our community as a whole. We also need to consider attendance procedures and protocols, academic responsibilities, and our own practice and game schedules to ensure that we have all needs met. Finally, the game schedules that are determined by our district could look very different, and there may not be the same "league" structure to which individuals have become accustomed.

For example, there has long been a tendency of student-athletes to come to school feeling ill, because they feel as though missing school will result in their missing a game and "letting a team down." In these times, a student coming to school when ill can have significant impacts. We have already seen how a symptomatic athlete in professional sports has led to team shutdown in Major League Baseball and college athletics. This is obviously our biggest concern.

We will be finalizing protocols and procedures for athletics in the next week or so. When we have them, there will explicit instruction provided. To those ends, we thank you for your patience.

Grade 8 Orientation

We are planning a couple of days of grade 8 orientation for next week, where we will have students and parents able to come in small groups to UHS for questions and answers. We have also arranged for device pickup for this Thursday. The orientation will be a little different than years past, but we will do our best to help organize something worthwhile and meaningful.

FAQ's

Earlier this week, we published some FAQ's, which seemed to help some of the confusion. As always, we cannot necessarily identify every single variable or answer individual questions to the extent some may desire. That being said, if there are specific questions or procedures for which you have a question, feel free to reach out. If Mr. DiMeglio or I cannot answer the question, we will put you in contact with someone who can.

Have a great weekend, and be safe.

Parent Town Hall: FAQ's

 Good afternoon,

Most of the questions from last night's Town Hall have been compiled into a single document of FAQ's. There may still be some additional questions, and we cannot possibly answer every possible scenario or speculation. The questions are posted on the UHS homepage and pasted below.

UXBRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL

PARENT TOWN HALL FAQ’s

Should we have filled out a survey for each child in the household or was one enough?

The reopening survey will be filled out for each student in the household.

Will 8th graders be receiving chromebooks instead of ipads?

Grade 8 students are receiving Chromebooks this year. Due to supply issues related to the pandemic and ongoing trade challenges on a global scale, we were not able to have orders for iPads fulfilled. Fortunately, due to the resourcefulness of our technology department, we were able to secure devices for all grade 8 students before the start of the school year, which became our primary objective.

We will be evaluating the use of Chromebooks for the 2020-21 school year and making determinations moving forward as to the best solution for us in the long run.

Flu shot update came out today - want to clarify if my child needs the shot before in school begins?

The guidance requiring flu shots of all students was just released on August 19. We will need to adjust school committee policy and communicate a time frame to have this requirement met for all students.

Where do I find my student’s schedule?

Student schedules are all accessible via iParent and iStudent.

Can you explain the schedule in more detail?

Let's say your child is part of Cohort A. He will be in school on Monday and Tuesday until about noon. He will then be remote from 12:30-2 at home. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, he will be fully remote.

 

A student who is part of Cohort B will be remote entirely on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then will be in school on Thursday and Friday from 7:30-12 or so, then remote again 12:30-2.

Each student takes seven classes, four of which will meet in the morning, and three will meet in the afternoon after lunch. The rotation of the schedule for Monday and Tuesday will be the same on Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will be dedicated to student passion projects and advisory time, as well as office hours. The students will spend half of the day completing asynchronous learning; the half-day in synchronous learning will be comprised of dedicated time with a staff member to review work, check grades, review Google classroom, and participate in the passion project, which will be dedicated to a specific theme for the grade-level.

The weekly schedule will look like this:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

A

E

A

E

B

F

B

F

C

G

C

G

D

A

D

A

LUNCH/LEAVE

LUNCH/LEAVE

LUNCH/LEAVE

LUNCH/LEAVE

REMOTE E, F , G

REMOTE B,C,D

REMOTE E, F , G

REMOTE B,C,D

The following week, the blocks that meet will change.

Are in person students getting dismissed at 12?

All students who are in-person will be dismissed by noon. The intention would be for all students to be home in time for an afternoon class to begin at 12:35 or so. We will be flexible with this period and evaluate the timing in the first couple of weeks of school. We are hoping that there will be ample time, but if not, we will make adjustments.

The daily schedule will look something like this:

TIME

CLASS

7:30-8:45

In first period class

SEL

Check-in

Longer block

Interventions for classroom

Extended learning for those who could use the time

8:45-9:45

Second Period

9:40-10:45

Third Period

10:45-12:00

Fourth Period

12:00-12:35

Lunch/Break

TIME

CLASS

12:35-1:05

Fifth Period

1:05-1:35

Sixth Period

1:35-2:05

Seventh Period

If there is a case of covid will all staff and students who came into contact with this individual be informed and asked to quarantine?

The Department of Public Health has released guidelines on who may be asked to quarantine in the event of a positive case. Our detailed plans, available on the school website, have scenarios explained for a variety of situations regarding positive cases or symptomatic students. We will not be permitted to share the specific identity of anyone who tests positive, but we will follow Board of Health guidance on notifying close contacts.

Will there be an 8th grade orientation?

We are planning on scheduling grade 8 orientations for the week of September 3 and the week of September 9.

What is happening with the teacher strike?

The teachers association has not authorized a strike. Strikes by educators are illegal per Massachusetts General Laws. As the Teachers’ Association and School Committee are involved in an active negotiation, further commentary regarding the state of that deliberation is not permitted.

Will the teacher be teaching the students in the room while on a zoom teaching the remote kids the same thing?

We are providing a number of options for teachers. There will be some cases where live streaming may be preferable, and, in other classes, teachers will combine videos, assignments, or virtual lessons with in-class connections. Because our schedule rotates, all classes will meet daily, and remote synchronous learning will occur for all afternoon classes each day. The morning classes will be the ones for which the in-person and remote students may have different assignments.

For example, if there is a class discussion, the teacher can ask a student in the room to monitor a Zoom chat with those remote, or assign work that can be completed in a small group with a student in-person working collaboratively with a student remotely. This sort of model occurs frequently in the professional world, and we have built routines and assignments that capitalize on our connectivity.

Whitin students are encouraged to bring wipes to clean desks. Is this the same for HS students?

We obviously encourage students to bring something to help sanitize their hands, but we are not requiring students to bring wipes.

Rather than the teacher trying to work with 2 separate groups can they have two teachers?

For us to have two teachers for each class, we would need to hire an additional 40-50 teachers. This is not something we are capable of at this time.

Will there be required covid testing prior to in person school for students and staff?

At this time, the Board of Health and Department of Public Health are not requiring mandatory testing as a prerequisite for entry to the building.

Are there any types of masks that can or can’t be worn- can kids wear the paper surgical style or a bandana or gaiter/buff-style?

Right now, the only guidance on face masks is that they need to cover the nose and mouth entirely. There is debate about the usefulness and safety of a gaiter, balaclava, or bandana, but, for now, those are also approved. They must be school appropriate in terms of language or content, if they have printing.

Can you describe the plans for social distancing on the school buses?

Seating plans for buses, once transportation routes have been developed, will be shared. Students will be wearing masks at all times, and seats will be assigned.

Will teachers have set expectations for zoom meetings - what type of accountability are teachers going to have for not meeting expectations?

Guidelines for students in terms of behavior, academic responsibility, and participation will be shared with students as part of a Handbook addendum being completed. It will be released in early September. An excerpt from that document with respect to student responsibilities is below.

The purpose of a video conference is to connect students with faculty synchronously in an online meeting, while conducting conversations and transferring educational material when the ability to do it face to face is unavailable. 

Mature and responsible behavior in a video conference is expected. Your teacher has the right to remove a student from a video conference who demonstrates poor behavior.

Social distancing is a priority. Students should not have any other people present during virtual lessons other than family members in your household.  

Observing the following social etiquettes will ensure that these meetings are meaningful and focused. 

  

To promote online safety, students MUST use their real names as their online username to enter any virtual classroom setting. Students will not be allowed to enter with alternate names. 

Students should join the classroom from a family space (kitchen, living room, den, etc.)

Mute the microphone upon first entering the meeting.    

Do not join or partake in a video conference before the teacher instructs you to do so.

 Always exit the video conference when instructed.

Be on time.

Be an active participant.

Wear school-appropriate clothing and use  school-appropriate language.

Frame the camera correctly. Select an appropriate background to ensure the focus stays on you if you are presenting

Have the right light to enable others to see you. 

Look into the camera when speaking.

Pay attention. Give your focus to the person speaking. Do not Interrupt. Avoid side    conversations, facial expressions, or actions that cause a distraction.

Mute yourself after speaking.

Students are NOT allowed to take pictures, record, and/or distribute any personal information of any individual during a virtual learning experience.

What happens if my son has an in school internship?

We are planning on working with students to determine what the needs of the internship are and when the student intends to participate. This student may be able to arrange coming into the building on more than one day a week.

Has Uxbridge taken advantage of federal funding?

Though we are not equipped to necessarily answer this at the building level, the town has been granted CARES Act funding that has helped with a number of COVID-related expenses for schools. 

Do students change classes or do teachers move?

Students will be changing classes. We have transit plans identified for safe movement across the building, including one-way staircases and the use of certain markings to designate ways to pass.

Will band be a part of the hybrid or remote?

Right now, we are working on solutions for instructing performing arts. At this point, the guidance is that band can only happen remotely or outdoors when 10 feet apart. Students scheduled into band will be part of the class regardless of model.

What happens with dismissals for students who are fully remote?

For any student who has an appointment or illness that will preclude them from participating in class, be it in-person or remotely, we would ask that the office be notified.

How many students are allowed in the hallway at a time/how do you maintain a 6ft distance between students as they move through the building?

Much like going to a store, we are going to be providing hallways that are divided down the middle. Students will walk each direction closer to one wall of the hall, and will pass when perpendicular to the door. Stairways are one-way. In the hallways, students will be more than six feet apart.

Close contact is defined as students being within six feet of each other for more than 15 minutes. As passing from one area of the building to another with a full student body takes no more than four minutes, we are confident in the ability to keep corridors manageable with half the students in the building at any given time.

Also, during class times, we have configured the pass system so that no more than ten students will be allowed out of the class at any given time, and each classroom will have an assigned restroom. Hall monitors will help with ensuring that transit is efficient.

On Wednesdays, who will be deciding what the students will be doing?

We will have entire templates for helping students drive self-directed projects. Last year, we used a model like this with our grade 8 students for our civics projects with great success. 

My child is in special education will his schedule be working the same way?

Yes. Some special education students will be in school all week as well.

Do we have sanitization stations/plexiglass/fans/outdoor class space set up?

Yes, or we are in the process of doing so.

How would you take an art class virtually?

Teachers will be providing students with tools and resources to complete some of the assignments. Document cameras, videos, and other postings will be used to develop exemplars for students, and the students will follow with assignments. Most of the assignments will center on specific themes or topics, rather than necessarily a specific media.

What is the maximum number of students who can be in a class?

This depends on the space. Typically with six foot distancing the average classroom can handle up to 18 students. Our average class size is about 20 students, so we do not imagine many sections with more than 10-12 students due the hybrid.

Why not extend the day instead of having the mad rush to then do remote in the afternoon?

Contractual obligations have our day end at 2:05 if it starts at 7:25 for teachers. If we need to extend time to get students home, we will.

Who is responsible for cleaning desks between classes?

We want to empower our students to be part of the solution and to, in some areas, to help with sanitizing. However, we also have solutions with desks in classrooms that will enable us to not re-use desks. (Desks are not high-touch areas, like doorknobs or faucets). All desks will then be cleaned after hours by our cleaning and custodial crew. 

If you have a student who gets ill, will they have to be tested for quarantine?

Further clarification will be in our Student Handbook Addendum for the coming year, which will be released in a couple of weeks. The below is lifted from that document.

Healthcare Responsibilities

Family should monitor students at home each morning for the most common symptoms of COVID-19 which include: 

Fever (100.4° Fahrenheit or higher), chills, or shaking chills 

Cough (not due to other known cause, such as chronic cough) 

Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath 

New loss of taste or smell 

Sore throat 

Headache when in combination with other symptoms 

Muscle aches or body aches 

Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea 

Fatigue, when in combination with other symptoms 

Nasal congestion or runny nose (not due to other known causes, such as allergies) when in combination with other symptoms 
 

IF NO SYMPTOMS: 

After an at home daily screening, if a staff/child has no symptoms, he/she should attend school. 

IF ANY SYMPTOM 

After an at home daily screening, if a staff/child has any symptoms, he/she should not attend school. Symptoms should be reported to the school’s nurse. The nurse should report any necessary information to the COVID-19 point of contact (Frank Tiano) and inform them student is staying home due to symptoms. Current Massachusetts Department of Public Health guidance is that all symptomatic individuals in Massachusetts, even those with mild symptoms, should be tested. An individual who does not wish to be tested should instead isolate for 14 days and until asymptomatic. It is, however, recommended that the staff/student should get tested at one of Massachusetts’s test sites. This list will be provided to families. Proceed as follows according to test results: 

TEST RESULTS IF NEGATIVE: 

Student stays home until asymptomatic for 24 hours. 

TEST RESULTS IF POSITIVE: 

Student should remain at home (except to get medical care), monitor their symptoms, notify the school, notify personal close contacts, assist the school in contact tracing efforts, and answer the call from local board of health or Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative. Most people who have relatively mild illness will need to stay in self-isolation for at least 10 days and until at least 3 days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms. 


COVID-19 Symptomatic Student In School

Again, any student or staff who is not feeling well, had contact with someone confirmed to be COVID- 19 positive, and while awaiting a COVID-19 test result shall remain at home. 
 Students assessed to have COVID-19 symptoms while in school will be brought to the COVID-19 designated waiting space to await dismissal. 

If a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, he/she must remain at home (except to get medical care), monitor their symptoms, notify the school, notify personal close contacts, assist the school in contact tracing efforts, and answer the call from local board of health or Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative. The Board of Health will work with UPS to conduct contract tracing following proper protocols. 

For most people who have relatively mild illness, they will need to stay in self-isolation for at least 10 days and until at least 3 days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms. The student’s parent/caregiver or the staff member informs the proper school official that the individual has tested positive for COVID-19. 

The designated COVID-19 school lead, Dr. Tiano, will then notify the school Principal and school nurse:

Determine whether the student or staff member was on the premises during the time frame that started two days prior to symptom onset (or testing positive if not symptomatic) until the time of isolation. 

If so, promptly close off areas visited by the COVID-19 positive individual until such areas can be cleaned and disinfected, if they have not been cleaned and disinfected already. 

Promptly clean and disinfect the student’s or staff member’s classroom and any other facilities visited by the individual, if that has not been done already. 

Promptly clean and disinfect the bus(es) the student or staff member was on. 

MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL (no single self-contained classroom): 
 

The school should identify the student’s or staff member’s possible “close contacts” based on the assigned seating charts and using attendance logs. 

The look-back period should begin two days before symptoms appeared (or two days prior to the date of the positive test if there were no symptoms) and include up until the time the student was isolated. 

Consider students and staff members who were within 6 feet of the individual for 10-15 minutes in class, on the school bus, or at extracurricular activities. 
 

Instruct the student or staff member to isolate while waiting for the results of their test. An individual who does not wish to be tested should instead quarantine for 14 days and until asymptomatic. 

For parents relying on bus transportation when do we hear if our student has a spot on the bus?

All students who registered for transportation will have a seat. We hope to release routes and buses in early September.

If the last three periods will be remote, how will those sports that are currently approved to play such as soccer be handled for daily practices - will students then have to come back to the school after they completed their remote classes?

The approval of athletics just came from the MIAA Board of Directors on August 19, so we will be sending guidance for athletics in the coming week.

Students who have practice scheduled for 2:15 may be allowed to stay at the building. However, students cannot linger in the building or on campus until practice starts. Procedures for the transitions between practices, team cohorts, etc. will be very specific and will need to be strictly adhered to.

We have many safety considerations to put in place to be able to conduct interscholastic athletics. We ask that you are patient as we develop those procedures and protocols.

Parent Town Hall

 The Parent Town Hall that was held on August 19 is below in both podcast and video form. 

Additionally, as I indicated in the meeting tonight, my apologies for being unclear at our last meeting with respect to iPads vs. Chromebooks. As of July, our intention was still to purchase iPads for our grade 8 students. However, in late July, it became possible that, due to supply issues, we were not likely to be able to obtain iPads due to shipping and manufacturing issues, specifically due to the pandemic and trade issues with the Far East. 

Given the 8th graders' familiarity with the devices, and the security procedures we have in place for Chromebooks, and Mr. Mistler's resourcefulness, we were able to outfit the entire grade with Chromebooks. While some of the functions and apps that students tend to like (including gaming) are lost on the Chromebook, the device is particularly useful for academic purposes, particularly because of the keyboard and our other security features. 

I apologize for any confusion and/or misinformation on my part. At the last meeting, my intention was to remember to bring this up, and I neglected to do so. I understand that it probably caught many people off-guard, but that was not my intention. Our goal truly was to get devices into the hands of our students in advance of the learning needs this fall. We hope you understand.

Grade 8 Tech Rollout

 Technology rollout information for UHS grade 8 students is below.

Grade 8 Technology Rollout

We are planning to distribute Chromebooks to our grade 8 students on Thursday, August 27, beginning at 8:00 a.m. Here is the procedure:

1. Sign up for insurance using the information provided at this site: https://www.uxbridgeschools.com/Page/649

2. On August 27, pull into the UHS campus and drive down past the turf field (at your right). You will stop just before the gymnasium.

3. Please make sure the driver of the vehicle is wearing a mask. Roll down the window and indicate the name of the student to the staff member there to assist.

4. Pull up to the front of the building. The student's device will be brought out to the vehicle. The box will include the Chromebook itself, a case, the charger, and a couple of "How-To" instructions in terms of setup.

As an FYI, all devices are the property of the district. The devices themselves will be configured so that they automatically connect to our student network when the student is on campus. Additionally, there is security software monitoring the device's activity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Typically, we review some of the security features at our grade 8 orientation. However, given that most of the grade 8 students utilized these devices when in grade 7, we are confident that appropriate use will continue.

Finally, if there are any conflicts with August 27, we will arrange an additional pickup day for the following week, which will be communicated sometime around August 31.

Weekly Update, August 14

We have a couple of updates from UHS this week.

MIAA Decision Forthcoming

The Commonwealth released guidelines for fall athletics, explicitly stating that these guidelines would be the basis of planning for K-12 schools with respect to athletics as well. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will likely release guidance on Monday, and that means that an MIAA decision from its Board of Directors is likely to follow by the end of the week.

At present, we are not able to share any specifics, only that we are preparing a couple of different scenarios depending on what is directed at the state level. We appreciate everyone's patience and will do our best to communicate as soon as we can.

Questions About Calendar

The Uxbridge School Committee will be reconsidering the district calendar in the coming weeks. With the direction from DESE that we need only 170 student days of school this year, with additional time for teacher training at the onset of the year, we will have to make some adjustments. 

Parent Town Hall Next Week

We are hosting a Parent Town Hall to discuss some the particulars of hybrid and remote learning, particularly as some questions have come up over the past few days. The High School's meeting will be at 7:00 p.m. next Wednesday. Specific information regarding call-in or Zoom link will be shared early next week.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have questions. Email is always best.

Be safe and stay well.

Spartan Podcast: August 7

 Here's the latest edition of our UHS Spartan Podcast:

Weekly Update, August 7

We have a few updates from Uxbridge High School this week.

Schedule Changes

It is entirely possible that many students have accessed their schedules for 2020-21. As of now, our plan is to have all classes run, even though many will require specific safeguards, particularly around equipment and shared supplies. That said, we have procedures in place for just about every possible course and scenario, so we are hopeful to be able to maintain most course offerings from students.

However, there are some situations when schedule changes are necessary or requested, for a number of reasons. Keep in mind that we cannot honor all schedule change requests, and some courses may not be running in the 2020-21 school year. Also, not every class meets every block, which may contribute to conflicts.

If there is a change to be requested, please fill out this form. The counselors will review over the next few weeks.

Hybrid Schedule Decision

The decision for Uxbridge to open with a hybrid schedule also means that some families will be able to choose a fully remote option. More direction on these choices, as well as a town hall to detail what the schedule will look like specifically for UHS, will be forthcoming. In the meantime, if families have specific questions, they can reach out to our administration.

Athletics Decision

The MIAA sent out a clarification earlier this week regarding athletics in the 2020-21 school year, namely that there is not yet a policy from the MIAA on athletic participation. The COVID task force of the MIAA will likely make a recommendation to the Board of Directors regarding the upcoming season(s) and how school attendance decisions could impact participation. That said, the Commissioner has indicated that fully remote models may not be able to participate in athletics. In the meantime, please be patient. We will communicate more when we have direction from the Commonwealth.

Finally, please know that no recommendation or decision made is done so in a vacuum or without hours of consideration, debate, and conversation. The number of resources that have been consulted, both in terms of research and individuals, has been exhaustive, and we remain optimistic of the vigilance and handling of our local community with respect to the virus. We all want the same thing: safety and normalcy. Our work is not done because a recommendation is made - we will continue to modify plans, adjust routines, and enhance procedures and protocols to minimize risk and maximize the academic opportunities for the coming school year, regardless of the turns that the pandemic takes us. To that, we continue to thank you for your patience, compassion, feedback, and consideration.

Reopening Town Hall: August 5

The video and audio/podcast of our Town Hall meeting held on August 5 is below.

Graduation Photos

Dear Families, Parents, and Guardians:

All photos from both the graduation parade and last night's ceremony are linked at this page:

https://davidsilvermanphotography.zenfolio.com/f876391677

With any question about quantity, pricing, or otherwise, feel free to reach out to David Silverman via dave@dspics.com.

Congratulations, again, to the Class of 2020. Stay safe, and hope to see you soon.

Michael Rubin