Grafton schools may cancel out-of-state field trips, postpone or cancel events

Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings issued a statement today updating parents on the status of the Grafton schools as the COVID-19 pandemic increases:

This is a brief update on the Coronavirus situation.  Superintendents have a conference call with DPH and the governor tomorrow (Friday) morning.  To date, the state has treated this situation like a snow day.  Every individual district is essentially on their own in deciding what to do.  The hope is that there will be more defined guidance from the state as of tomorrow morning.  Ideally, this will be along the same lines as what was done with EEE. The state offered definitive measures that districts enacted.  I will be putting out a third update on Coronavirus after the call tomorrow.  Depending on how today goes, I may put something out this afternoon too.

• The governor has asked that international school trips be canceled.  We had one trip scheduled to go to Europe over April vacation and it has been postponed till next year.
• The governor is recommending that out-of-state field trips be canceled.  We have a number of trips at both GHS and GMS scheduled to go out-of-state in April and May.  We are meeting today and tomorrow on this and should have decisions made by the end of the week.
• State guidance recommends that large gatherings that involve the public be postponed or canceled.  We will be working to communicate postponements and cancelations of upcoming events (i.e. shows, concerts, etc.) today.
• If parents are concerned enough about Coronavirus that they want to keep their children home for an extended period of time as a preventative measure, they will need to create and submit a homeschooling plan.  At this point, parents can’t simply self-quarantine their children for the next few months without some sort of plan in place.
• The state has modified school attendance requirements related to the 180-day rule.  In our case, we will not have to extend the school year beyond June 18 even if we need to close schools between now and then. So, no matter how this plays out, our last day of school will be no later than June 18.
• If we do need to close at some point, I do not anticipate charging staff for use of sick days and we do plan on paying our support staff who typically do not get paid unless school is in session (i.e. paraprofessionals, clerks).  The loss of income in this situation would be damaging and we obviously want to help avoid that hardship.
• If we do have to cancel school at any point, we will not be providing virtual or remote learning in place of regular class instruction.  The state is not accepting the use of virtual/remote learning days due to the fact that there is such a wide variance in access to devices and wi-fi for students across the state. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Jay