Letter from Doug Tuetken 5/19

May 19, 2020
Maquoketa Valley Parents, I wanted to provide a  quick update on a couple of items as it pertains to graduation, Dollars for Scholars, prom, food service program, summer school and our district’s Return to Learn plan.
  • Graduation – After collaborating with Delaware County Public Health, weather permitting, graduation will be an outdoors ceremony to be held at our football/track facility on June 7th at 4:00 p.m.  With an outdoor ceremony we will be able to adhere to the Governor’s and County Public Health’s social distancing recommendations and guidelines.  Our intent is to conduct a ceremony that is somewhat similar to our current commencement ceremonies.  Our plan will be to have our graduating seniors seated in our home side bleachers at a minimum of 6’ feet apart.  The stage for distribution of diplomas and Dollar for Scholar awards will be set-up on the track.  Each graduate will be allowed a cluster of 10 seats in front of the stage on the football field reserved for their immediate family members. These assigned clusters will be strategically placed to adhere to social distancing guidelines.  To also meet Public Health’s recommendations, only family members of the graduate will be allowed to attend the ceremony.  We realize that it is difficult to not invite our general public and other students to our ceremony, but in order to have a traditional ceremony for our families, and ensure the health and safety of our families, we need to abide by these recommendations.  In the abundance of caution, we would encourage those family members who may be ill, 60 or over or anyone that may have an existing health condition to not attend the ceremony.  To help to alleviate this concern, we will provide parking inside the facility for those family members with exposure concerns to view and listen to the ceremony inside of their vehicle.  The rain date for the Graduation ceremony will be July 5th.
  • Dollars for Scholars – The Dollars for Schools program will be a part of our commencement ceremony.  It is important that we take the time to recognize those individuals that have given so generously to this program for our seniors.  Please know that the Dollars Board will streamline this portion of our ceremony.
  • Prom – Due to social guideline restrictions, prom will not be held on June 5th but we have hope to still offer this event on July 3rd.  As that date approaches we will let students and parents know if we are able to hold the event.
  • Food Service Program – We will be continuing our Monday and Wednesday food service distribution for the month of June.  We will not be distributing meals on Memorial Day on Monday May 25th.  We will still be distributing to any students 18 and under.  Our distribution sites will remain at Delhi, Earlville and Johnston Elementary.  Due to some income restrictions, we may have to eliminate some of our home deliveries.  But know that the program will continue and we do anticipate the program will probably be available throughout the summer.
  • Summer School – If COVID restrictions continue to be eased we will be offering a morning summer school program Monday through Thursday for our elementary children beginning the week of  July 13th.  This program will run for 3 weeks.  Although we will be expanding the program to involve more students than we normally do, we will still organize this invite program similar to previous years.  We need to take care of our most vulnerable children first but to also meet the needs of all of our children, we will be offering  online summer school lessons taught by our teachers similar to what is currently being offered.  We will make available devices and/or hotspots if this is needed for online learning.  This gives all of our students an opportunity to stay engaged if a family so desires.
  • Return to Learn – The district has begun the process of developing our Return to Learn plan for this fall.  We are developing 3 different plans to address possible scenarios of a required online platform, a hybrid delivery if only a portion of our students are able to come to the buildings due to social distancing requirements and if we are able to return in a normal fashion.  We are flushing out our plans to address learning gaps caused by our early departure from school, define our essential learnings, revise our scope and sequence and also develop health and safety plans for our students and staff.  We will be sending out a survey to our parents, students and staff to solicit their input as we continue to develop our plans.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or one of our staff members if you have any questions and please stay safe! Doug

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