CHS News

Dear GUSD Families and Staff;

I am writing to give you an update about the district’s plans for the Fall 2020.  I provided an update about the Fall 2020 to the Board of Education and public at the June 11, 2020 Board meeting.  I know there were a number of people watching the livestream of the meeting about the next steps for reopening our schools.  If you were not able to watch this presentation live, you can access my June 11 powerpoint here. 

During my presentation to the School Board, I described the planning process that is underway for the Fall.  In early May, I formed the Fall 2020 Planning Committee, which is comprised of about 30 people.  The full committee and three subcommittees have been meeting regularly for over a month.  The Committee is working on many tasks including safety protocols, possible learning scenarios, acquiring protective equipment, surveys of all stakeholders groups and so much more. 

The Committee will finalize plans for Fall 2020 when we receive final direction from the Santa Clara Public Health Department and the Santa Clara County Office of Education. This guidance will be distributed to school districts by June 30, 2020.  As soon as we receive this document, the Planning Committee will convene and finalize plans for the Fall.  When those plans are finalized, I will communicate with you about what will be offered in the Fall.

I am grateful for the insight committee members have offered and for the time they have given to this process.  Our committee members include members of my Cabinet, maintenance, nurses, special education, teachers from elementary and secondary schools, counselors, principals, leaders from our four bargaining units, communications department, facilities, transportation, the school board, information technology, and support staff.  The responses from the surveys have been very helpful to our planning process.  We also plan to hold small focus groups with parents when we have direction from the County.

Many thanks to those who completed the parent, student or staff surveys a few weeks ago. We had a very good response rate.  Some parents indicated that they do not plan to send their children to school in August due to concerns about COVID19.  I am hopeful that once our detailed plans are released that parents will feel more comfortable about sending their children to school.  However, in order to serve all children in our district, we will offer a Virtual Learning Academy which will be an online learning program.  Improvements to the online options will be based on the lessons learned from the program this spring, as well as existing online schools. The new Virtual Learning Academy will provide a strong standards-based curriculum which keeps pace with students in the traditional classroom setting. If you are interested in this option please complete the GUSD Virtual Academy Interest Form for each child that might be attending.

I want to acknowledge that this is a stressful time for so many people in our community. It is understandable that you are wondering what will happen next year.  For some of you, you’re wondering how you’re going to work full-time outside of your home and support your children academically given the scenarios under consideration by school districts.  Some of you are nervous about sending your children back to school at all. 

Our staff members and teachers want answers to those questions too.  Unfortunately, at this time the answers aren’t available.  We continue to plan for a number of scenarios, while knowing that ultimately the final decisions about how and when schools reopen aren’t ours to make. 

Please be assured that we are working as hard as we can to make sure the transition back to the classroom will be as seamless as possible in whatever scenario we are able to offer. I am confident in our district leaders, teachers and other staff members that we will provide excellent educational opportunities for our students in new and alternative ways.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Dr. Deborah A. Flores, Ph.D.

Superintendent

Gilroy Unified School District

 

Correction June 5, 2020 letter;

In my last letter, I incorrectly stated the following - “we had to do our part to slow the spread of the first pandemic on record in the last century.”  One of our district parents pointed out to me that there have been three pandemics in the last century – the 1957-58 H2N2 flu pandemic, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, plus the HIV/AIDS pandemic from 2005-2012.