Fall 2020 School Bell

Region 10 School Bell FALL 2020 A Publication About Region 10 Schools BACK-TO-SCHOOL ISSUE REGION 10 WELCOMES BACK STUDENTS AND STAFF It certainly looks different in Region 10 this school year. the school where their parent worked, and were assisted by Hallways are clearly marked with directional arrows, all a variety of Region 10 staff, and in some cases high school staff and students wear masks, lunchroom seats are spaced 6 students, during the day. If a child needed to log in and Zoom feet apart, Physical Education classes are being held outside for class, they were able to do so while in childcare. There when possible (pic- were also opportunities for the kids to watch movies, create tured), and mask artwork, complete homework, and work with legos and breaks are part of STEM bins. It was a true team effort to help our staff whose many student’s children were not yet in school full time. daily routine. Region 10 students began the school year on August 31st in To get our a Hybrid model of “Cohort A” and “Cohort B,” broken into students and staff one half of the alphabet attending each cohort. After success- back to school, fully re-introducing K-6 full time on September 14th, 7-12 Region 10 cre- grades started back full time on September 28th. On that day, ated a Reopening staff in the district Steering Commit- wore their “Region tee that was comprised of six working groups: Operations, 10 Strong” t-shirts Health and Safety, Student Services, Teaching and Learning, (pictured) because, Coordination/Communication and Technology. They made as Susan Laone, excellent progress throughout the summer to create a dis- Director of Finance trict plan that assured a safe environment under current and and Operations evolving conditions. Along with the administration and mem- stated, “Together we bers of the Board of Education, there were eight teachers on are strong and can the Steering Committee and more than a dozen teachers who get through any- participated in the various working groups. Superintendent thing!” Howard Thiery stated, “The voice of the teachers in our As Region 10 completes the third month of school, the planning work has been a critical foundation to developing a administration continues to work closely with the Bristol/ plan for both health, safety and effective teaching.” Burlington Health Department and Torrington Area Health Although a majority of our staff and students headed back District to ensure safety procedures and protocols are fol- into the classroom, the Region 10 administration took into lowed, and that contact tracing is completed for anyone account that not all school districts in our geographical area considered in close contact with a Covid case. We are proud were fully open. Thus, Region 10 added childcare during the of our staff and students for handling the many changes that first month of school for employees whose children were not have transpired thus far. We are Region 10 Strong! yet attending school in person. The children were placed in Technology Gets an Upgrade in Region 10 When Joe Sousa was hired in 2019 as the Director of Technology & Innovation, he set several goals for the District in regards to upgrading technology, updating security, and distributing personal learning devices (PLD’s) to all K-12 students. “Security and stability have been two focus areas since I arrived in June of 2019. All of our devices are now protected with anti-virus and anti- malware with ransomware protection built in. We also upgraded our network firewalls, which dramatically improved our security stance, network stability, and network speeds. We have moved services out to the cloud to reduce our overall infrastructure.” “We also added a cloud-based email monitoring and anti-phishing platform last fall. Phishing is when emails are sent fraudu- lently to induce individuals to reveal personal information or something of monetary value. This platform looks for suspicious email formats that are commonly used in phishing attacks, identifies them, and automatically sends them to Junk Email while notifying the user. As most ransomware starts from phishing emails, this is a critical part of our security strategy.” As of today, grades 5-12 are fully 1:1 with PLD’s, with K-4 being added this fall. Sousa adds, “The landscape for being able ~continued on Page 3 Superintendent’s Corner Howard Thiery The 2020-21 school year continues to be a year like no other. Our schools have been open for three months amidst the continued landscape of the pandemic. Our faculty, staff and administrators have done an incredible job adapting our schools so that they are safe places for students to learn every day. Our students have been amazing as they work hard every day to follow our safety guidelines. What I have found most rewarding and heartwarming is if you could visit our schools, you would see children who are incredibly happy to be in school, to be together and to learn with their school community. I am extremely proud of our profes- sionals and our students! As the Covid numbers continue to increase in this second wave of the pandemic, I want to assure you that we are watching the infection data in our community and schools very closely on an ongoing basis. I attend a meeting with the State Epidemiologists every week and the regional Directors of Public Health minimal- ly once per week to look at our plans and the current data. At this point in time the data still supports students being in school to learn. Our communities are still running lower than many in the state despite the upward trend we are seeing in both towns. In addition, we now know that schools are doing significantly bet- ter than their communities in terms of number of cases. The State Epidemiologist believes this is because the mitigation strategies used in schools, especially masks and distancing, are more consistently maintained in schools than in the general community. In addition, when we do have a case our contact tracing is very accurate because we can account for the location of staff and students throughout the school day. The effectiveness of these processes has kept overall school cases much lower than the general population and has thus far prevented any documented school-based transmission. The takeaways from all of these discussions is that despite the upward trends in the state, schools are still effectively mitigating the infection risks. As of today, our schools have been open for 12 weeks and we have had 11 Covid cases thus far. We will continue to track our mitigation processes and procedures closely, but until such time as the data shows that it is safer for students to learn from home or that we do not have suf- ficient staff due to quarantines, we will remain open. As I pointed out, all of our cases have come into our schools from the community. Please carefully consider all of your actions out in our community. The prevalence of the Covid virus is increasing and what we do each and every day can impact our ability to keep our children in school. Please wear a mask, keep your distance and consider reducing social gatherings. This second wave is anticipated to keep increasing through the holidays before waning after the new year. We need to do this together. Please keep yourself and your loved ones safe! With Respect, Honor and Gratitude - Thank You, Veterans! Regional School District #10 would like to thank our Veterans for their sacrifice and service to our Nation. Even though our traditional Veterans Day celebrations could not occur in each of our schools, students and staff celebrated in other ways, such as wearing Red, White and Blue and discussing what Veterans Day means to them. Lewis Mills High School opted to livestream a special ceremony to the entire school, complete with inspirational speeches, patriotic singing and the playing of Taps. Thank you, Veterans, for your sacrifice, your bravery, and the example you set for us all! Junior Savannah Duursema recited Seniors Jessi Nevin, Jilly Atlas and Lauren Sophomore Josh Mazar and Junior Liam Smith a letter originally written by Fitzgerald beautifully harmonized on the song finished the ceremony with Taps to honor President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” our Veterans. 2 Region 10 School Bell ~ continued from Page 1, Technology to obtain any student devices from manufacturers is very difficult right now, with supply chains changing daily. We are fortunate to have had the overwhelming support of the Board of Education, Superintendent Thiery, and the Administration in being able to act early this past spring to secure devices amid unprecedented global demand. All student devices either are or will be running GoGuardian, which is a device-based web content filtering platform. This protects both the students and devices from dangerous or damaging content from anywhere, whether they are in school or at home. This is especially important as we prepare to have 1:1 devices at all grade levels K-12. We continue to provide supplemental laptops to families as we have since March, particu- larly grades K-4, for those who may need additional equipment during a potential hybrid scenario. A pilot program was launched this past summer which provided many elementary teachers with new Windows laptops like those the students will receive.” Sousa concludes, “Work continues at the BOE Tech Committee and within the administration to develop a technology stan- dards-based framework for technology integration districtwide. This work centers around identifying technology and digital literacy skills for students as well as faculty and weaving them into the curriculum.” The Region 10 Tech Department has put together a number of resources for parents, which can be found at the following link: http://www.region10ct.org/technology.

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