COVID-19 Update (#21)
September 16, 2020
Dear Hillsboro Students and Families,
I never imagined writing what is now “COVID-19 Update 21”. But, here we are. The 2020-21 school year has begun. I want to thank everyone for the continued support and encouragement during this time. Seeing students and staff back in school has provided a much-needed lift to all of us.
As you are aware, we had a ReStart Committee develop our plans for navigating COVID-19 and our return to school for this year. In that plan are three different “learning phases”. Fortunately, we were able to begin the year in our “Green” status will has allowed all student the opportunity to return to in-person learning. If cases in our area were to increase to a point of concern, we would transition to either the “Yellow” or the “Red” level. These levels are similar to what almost every school district has developed.
A common question we receive is “How will the district determine when to transition to a different learning phase?” The schools in Vernon County along with the Vernon County Health Department have had many conversations about when to transition from one learning phase to another. There are several metrics available that provide us a snapshot of our current situation in terms of cases and test results in our area. Here are a few that you can visit to see how these various tools reflect on our current situation:
- Wisconsin DHS (cases by county and census tract)
- Vernon County Health Department
- Harvard “Pandemics Explained” Model
- COVID Act Now
In addition to these tools that we are closely following, we are also analyzing daily our most local data which is are our students or staff having positive test results.
While the metrics do show that cases in Wisconsin and Vernon County are certainly increasing, we are still fortunate with that local data so we can continue to operate in our “green phase”. However, it is important to stress to everyone affiliated with the School District of Hillsboro the importance of taking every reasonable effort to limit exposure to COVID-19. The better we all are at taking the preventative measures, the longer we will be able to stay in our current learning status.
Sincerely,
Curt Bisarek
Superintendent