7.20.2020
Dear Brewer Schools’ Families,
I wanted to reach out now that we are getting closer to a recommendation regarding the return to school this fall. The Brewer School Department will send a community letter once we have the red-yellow-green categorization of different counties across the state that the Maine Department of Education (M-DOE) intends to publish on July 31, 2020. This designation will correspond to M-DOE's Framework for Returning to Classroom Instruction and our Brewer Framework Level Options that we shared with families the last week of school this past June (in addition to this informational letter: 6.19.2020, 11th Letter, Framework for Fall).
It would be premature for us to finalize and report any specific plan before this last piece of information is received and taken into consideration.
However, please know that we have been hard at work thinking through the different possible scenarios, ordering PPE, and cleaning and preparing our buildings. We have had a chance to reflect on the months of remote learning, as well as to look over the more than 300 responses we had to our parent/guardian survey. All of this has helped us to think more clearly about this fall, and while we worked hard to do a good job last spring we will improve and do an even better job of helping your students to learn and grow in any model. We stand ready to support all our students whatever their needs.
We will have a specific return to school plan that will be discussed at the Brewer School Committee’s virtual meeting on Monday, August 3 at 6:00 p.m. A link for that meeting will be sent to our families and posted on the district’s website so anyone can tune in to hear important details about our plan. This will also give families a month to prepare and ask any questions you may have. While we wish it were longer, we are all dealing with the hand this virus has dealt us. To that end, once we have all the critical pieces of information we can gather we will act quickly and get you quality information.
We remain dedicated to establishing a safe, effective model to begin the 2020-2021 school year and are hopeful that by the time we make the turn for spring and the last quarter of the year we will see things returning to normal. Until then we will be patient and move with appropriate caution keeping safety, social/emotional wellness, and learning in mind.
Sincerely,
Gregg Palmer, Superintendent of Schools