Weekly News and Notes, November 20

We have a few updates from UHS this week. There will not be a Weekly update shared next week.

Spartan Podcast

Please click below to tune into this week's Podcast.

State Mandated Vaccine requirements

Influenza (flu) vaccine for all UHS grade levels by December 31st and MenACWY (Meningococcal) vaccine for Grade 11 students, this is typically done at the 16 year physical. This applies to fully remote and in-person students. Documentation by your provider may be submitted to UHS via fax 508-278-8647, email: tschiller@uxbridge.k12.ma.us, or hard copy to the UHS main office. Also, if you have a medical or religious exemption to either of these vaccines please submit documentation.    

Winter Sports

The MIAA Board of Directors was voting on Friday, November 20 to review the recommendations of the Sports Medicine Committee and the MIAA COVID Task Force for fall athletics. When those recommendations are approved (or sent back to revision), we will work with our district athletic committee and league to operationalize them within the winter season.

Right now, we are asking for patience. We do not believe there will be any winter sports starting before mid-December. Mr. Carbone will be sharing information as soon as we can.

Picture Makeup Day

We hope to be scheduling a school photo makeup day for one of the Wednesdays in December, during which students can come to the building and have their photo redone. We are asking anyone who is requesting a photo makeup, or who has not taken his/her picture, to email Ms. Durkin at ddurkin@uxbridge.k12.ma.us, so we can have an idea of how many students we are looking at.

Finally, I have long said that Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year. This year, it will absolutely take on a different look and feel, particularly as many of our large gathering are compromised by the pandemic. We remind families of the restrictions placed on travel and urge people to make smart choices and, most importantly, stay safe during this holiday season. In that spirit, we hope that everyone finds something for which they are thankful, be it family, friends, good health, or spirt. 

Fall Sports 2020: A Requiem

Dear Parents, Guardians, Coaches, and, especially, Student-Athletes:

When we first set out to begin this school year, there were many concerns about the fall season, from logistics, to safety, to scheduling. We asked a great deal of our student-athletes and our communities. In August, we were concerned beyond belief about where our school year would go, how long we would stay in session safely, and whether or not our procedures, despite the hundreds of hours that went into planning, would be fail-safe. To complicate matters, we heard the hew and cry from dozens of prospective student-athletes and families about the impact of delaying the fall season's start, with some imploring us not to cancel - though that was never a consideration.

We are now at the waning moments of this fall season, a season that has had its crest of emotions, an ebb and flow, highs and lows, unlike any season any of us have experienced. With the pod system, traditional rivalries went by the wayside. Some of our opponents because quite familiar, since we had fewer options for some sports' opponents, and the goal of hoisting a state tournament championship trophy, which is so very important to so many of us, also was taken from us. Practices took new forms. Bus rides had different feels. Game strategy, for some sports, adjusted and adapted, whether it was because of new rules or limits to players and tactics. Hand sanitizing and masks became as much a part of our equipment as the ball, the spikes, or the sticks. Fans were mostly respectful of our guidance and limitations, draconian as they may have been considered. 

We managed to get to the end of the season with, really, very little disruption. To that end, our school administration is grateful. We are grateful for our coaches and support staff, for all they rolled with, and being patient with an administration that was imposing new guidelines, some of which were not of our own will and design. We are grateful for our parents, guardians, and fans, who did their best to stay upbeat with student-athletes who were frustrated with these new rules and provided us with feedback, positive and negative. We are grateful, most of all, for our student-athletes, not just for their commitment to their sports, but for recognizing how hard this really was. Personally, I missed getting out to games as often as possible - it is one of my favorite parts of the job. This fall, complications and conflicts made that difficult, particularly as we continue to move the school forward. However, many of us who could not be there in person, were always watching from afar, be it via the erstwhile support of Uxbridge Cable and the live streams, or by getting regular texts from the athletic director.

We all long for those days before March, when things seemed much simpler and sports were just sports, to an extent. We look ahead to winter, with trepidation and anxiety about the rising numbers at the local, state, and national scale. We continue to ask our students, staff, coaches, families, and communities to make extraordinary sacrifices and adjustments to combat a global pandemic and sustain our safety and well-being. No decisions we make have been done lightly, and many of them came with incredible disappointment and frustration, though, as we have now persevered through the fall, we hope that everyone looks back at fall 2020 with a degree of both relief and gratitude for what was accomplished, not what was lost.

Athletics are, as another educator administrator wrote last week, an "important and intricate part of the fabric of our communities." To those who helped make this fall a possibility, thank you. To those who gave us something to cheer for, thank you. And to those who remain patient with the prospect of our next seasons and a day when more normalcy returns, thank you.

Yours in black and orange,

Mike Rubin, Principal
Uxbridge High School

Schedule for November 16

 The schedule for Monday, November 16:

Spartan Podcast: November 13

 The Spartan Podcast edition for November 13 is linked below!

Weekly News and Notes, November 13

We have a few updates from UHS this week.

Winter Athletics

The MIAA sport committees will be providing information to the Sports Medicine Committee next week, after which recommendations for the winter season will be forthcoming. Right now, we have very few certainties.

If we are able to have a winter season, please know that our district will not likely be starting immediately after Thanksgiving, as is the typical practice. We also are not sure if the athletic pod for the winter will be consistent with the pod alignment from the winter. Given the rising metrics and ongoing issues with COVID-19 in both the local and regional areas, we are sharing this concern now because we know that the community has much interest in decisions about athletics. The reality is that it is impossible to speculate at this point, and we will let everyone know what the winter will include once we are certain.

In the meantime, winter registration will be opening on FamilyID in the next week.

Thanksgiving Travel

We are looking forward to the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of the month. Please be aware of all travel guidelines and restrictions. If out-of-state travel occurs during the holiday weekend, individuals must quarantine for 14 days or produce a negative PCR test for COVID-19.

Picture Retakes

We have not yet scheduled picture retakes for this year. We will let everyone know when that date and time is finalized.

School Council Opening

We are still in search of a grade 8 and grade 9 parent to participate on our School Council. We meet monthly. Please reach out to Mr. Rubin directly if at all interested.

Spirit Week!

Thanks to our Student Council for organizing a Spirit Week next week. Themes are:

Parent Feedback

The parent feedback that we got from last week's survey (almost 250 responses!) was tremendously helpful. We will be reviewing the composite data with our School Council and leadership team, and, fortunately, the positives outweighed the negatives. For the most part, there seems to be confidence in the building's safety, concern for the upcoming cold and flu season and the virus' autumn surge, and gratitude for the efforts of the staff and administration. We realize that there are some areas where the schoolwork has been challenging to navigate, in terms of assignment and quantity, and we could do a better job of articulating due dates in some areas.

The challenge that was most overwhelmingly identified was that the students in the two cohorts are generally disconnected from each other, which is to be expected, given the logistics. There were also a number of comments that most consistently indicated that some parents, at least those who shared those, want students back in school more days. Some parents also indicated that they do not understand or value the work being asked of students on Wednesday, namely the idea of a passion project, though in grades 8 and 11 these are centered around specific requirements, such as the civics project (grade 8) and financial literacy (grade 11). 

Further, for every person who indicated that there was “too much work,” there was someone indicating that students could be challenged more. Additionally, for some of the specific teachers who were mentioned as needing support in terms of organization or work assignments, there were other parents who commended the same teachers for the same areas. Please know that we continue to work hard at differentiating and adjusting the workload in all our classes, that there is never a perfect solution, and that we are starting to hear successes and challenges typically heard in any given school year is a sign that we have normalized the hybrid schedule, to some extent.

Finally, in the past couple of days, we have had a number of people reach out following the town's recent uptick in positive cases. Please know that we continue to operate very safely at UHS. One of the pieces of advice we have provided our staff is to treat everyone as if they are potentially carrying the virus - meaning maintaining distance, washing hands, and being masked. Because of the many safeguards we have in place, we know that UHS is safe and that risk is minimized. We know that this is inconvenient for everyone, but we are confident that better days are coming. Feel free to reach out if you or your families need any support, particularly as we head to the holiday season.

Have a great weekend!