This decision was made by our executive leadership team. This team is composed of 12 experts in education with many years of experience. It was argued and debated in a thoughtful, intelligent way with the lens of the long picture for keeping kids in school.
We believe that we could not bring more kids back physically into schools during an Oregon statewide freeze/shut down that was called due to high numbers of Covid in Oregon. We also don't believe the freeze will be limited to 2 weeks.
We have been here before. We believe that Governor Brown will go until after New Year. We fear she will shut us down again. Our numbers in Oregon are spiking way up. We don't want Lincoln County to do that as well. You cannot bring kids back when the state is shutting down. It makes zero sense as much as we would like to. The Freeze came after the metrics changed and we had to respond to it. Also, the Executive Order stated that people should work from home as much as possible and since we are 4-12 CDL, the teachers would have to stay home while the kids get called back.
Again, that makes no sense. That is why we chose to Freeze and protect what we have now. Right now we have K-3 in person hybrid, CTE in person, kids with no internet connectivity at the secondary and wildfire victims. The rest remains 4-12 CDL. Until the state settles down we have to keep what we have going strong. For the record, we don't believe that online learning is good for everyone but we do the best we can. We desire to get all kids back in person as soon as we can safely.
We can provide some amount of stability for 8 weeks. We are tired of telling families this is happening and then the state comes back and tells us something different. Superintendents have whiplash from this constant change. The numbers of Covid are up in our county. I am terrified if they keep climbing that the Governor will shut us down again so we are keeping kids out of school for now. This is for the short term. It gets us past the holidays. The long term goal is K-12 Hybrid Feb, 2021. Jan 28 is the last day of the first semester.