From the Leadership Team

 

Dear MSD Community:

 

Welcome back! We are excited to get the 2021-2022 school year started.

 

 

Families, students, and staff are invited to share their favorite first day of school snapshots with us. Direct message your snapshots to @MSDorioles on Instagram, email socialmedia@msd.edu, or use the hashtag #MSDFirstDay and your photos may be featured in our Back to School album on our website and social media pages.

 

This year, we are inviting our staff, students, and community members to wear school colors—orange and black—on Fridays. Our after school programs and Student Life staff will lead the school colors celebration early on Thursdays. Shop online here if you would like to purchase your own customized school gear.

 

Here are some things you need to know about our reopening:

 

MSD is implementing a multi-layered health and safety protocol to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Enhanced mitigation measures include the use of face coverings, increased sanitization, physical distancing decals and plexiglass partitions, and improved ventilation with open windows and air purifiers in classrooms, residence halls, and common areas. In addition, MSD employees will be required to provide proof of full vaccination or undergo regular weekly COVID-19 testing, starting the first week of September. This requirement applies to all employees, interns, coaches, and any regular volunteers at MSD.

 

When an individual on MSD campus tests positive for COVID-19, MSD's contact tracers will identify those who have had direct contact and follow up with any quarantine instructions. MSD will continue to notify the school community of any positive COVID-19 cases. Parents/guardians must notify school leadership if their child is exposed to COVID-19 or receives a positive test result. When the school administration is made aware of a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, MSD will inform and work with local health departments to support their contact tracing efforts.

 

MSD will strive to support continued student learning during any required quarantine due to COVID-19. If a student is quarantined, their absence from school will be excused. Students will be able to access their classroom assignments on their teacher's online platform (i.e. Google Classroom, Seesaw, etc.). In the event that a student does not have access to the internet from their home, arrangements for the delivery of the hard copies of work, instruction content, and materials needed to complete the work will be made with parent/guardian involvement.

 

MSD teachers will be required to upload student assignments within 24 business hours of the lesson delivery for students to access their missed instruction. Students will not receive live, virtual instruction from a teacher on a separate schedule from their peers; MSD will offer additional instructional support from MSD employees before school, after school, during prep times, or by other agreed upon appointment times made individually with parents/guardians to meet specific household needs during the quarantine period.

 

Students in middle and high school grade bands have electronic devices that they bring back and forth to school which allow them access to uploaded instructional materials and content in the event of a quarantine period. Elementary students will have the ability to bring their devices home in the event that a quarantine period is known before they go home for an extended duration. If an elementary student goes home without their device and their stay becomes extended due to a quarantine requirement, MSD will make arrangements for the delivery of the device and any other instructional materials to the child's home, if needed.

 

Students and families in need of access to high speed internet will be provided with a hotspot by MSD in the event that their child is quarantined and requires access to online platforms and instructional materials.

 

If a student needs to quarantine at any time during the school year, or if students must return to an online learning environment, related services will continue to be provided via a telehealth platform.

 

Inclement weather or other safety conditions may require MSD to close or have a delayed opening. At this time, the Maryland State Department of Education has instructed schools that a shift to online learning in the event of inclement weather will not be permitted and that any missed days will need to be made up. Should MSD need to close campus, there will be no instruction or after school and extracurricular activities that day.

 

Our school calendar does not include make-up days due to inclement weather or other emergency closings. At this time, our last day of school is on Friday, June 10, 2022. MSD reserves the right to extend the school year after June 10, 2022 or to modify the calendar in the event that additional days are needed to meet the 180-day requirement for students.

 

In an effort to support the whole child, additional social, emotional, and behavioral support will be provided by school staff and members of the Mental Health Team (school social workers, counselors, and psychologists) as students return to school. Support includes professional development for MSD staff, regular check-ins with students and staff, the integration of social and emotional learning during lessons, and availability to consult with families and staff members on an as-needed basis.

 

Our campus principals will schedule virtual joint-campus forums to answer any questions families may have related to MSD or with our reopening plans in September. More information will be shared shortly.

 

MSD will not close buildings and move to online instruction for all students unless state government officials order the school to do so. If the state orders reduced capacity in school buildings, MSD is developing a plan for hybrid instruction where students would receive in-person instruction on some days and online instruction on other days.

 

Let's look forward to a new school year together!

 

Jennifer Yost Ortiz

Interim Chief Educational Programs Officer

 

Video in ASL | Watch ASL Video

 

PDF in Spanish | Traducción al Español

 

Dear MSD Community:

 

The 2021-2022 school year is around the corner! It is the 154th year for the Frederick Campus and the 49th year for the Columbia Campus. Only four years ago we celebrated our 150th anniversary. Only next year we will celebrate Columbia Campus' 50th school year.

 

 

Our theme for the last school year was Standing Together. While we will continue to stand together, we must work together to move forward. As I mentioned in my previous email, this will be another unique year with the pandemic and we still have a lot of work to do with social justice and bettering ourselves as individuals and as a whole. Some of us are returning to school for the first time since March 2020 and this will be an adjustment for many. Regardless of the obstacles that may come our way, we need to continue to move forward together. This year's theme reminds us to embrace these challenges and to pursue progress together. With progress, we can grow, transform, and thrive.

 

We would like to recognize the artist of our logo, Julie Bourne. She is currently a Career and Technology Education (CTE) teacher on our Frederick Campus. Thank you Julie for designing this beautiful logo.

 

We normally like to invite the community to decide on what the ASL sign for the theme should be. Some years, this comes from one of our students. Some years, it comes from one of our staff. And some years, we have several signs depending on the context. We are looking forward to learning what the ASL sign for the theme will be this year.

 

We were hoping that we would be able to return to our annual back-to-school event this year. As a safety measure, we will not be able to organize this event in-person this year. In observance of Rosh Hashanah, our traditionally scheduled back-to-school event for the Tuesday after Labor Day will be hosted virtually on Friday, September 24. More information will be shared soon.

 

At this time, our symptom screening procedure has changed. Parents/guardians are now responsible for screening their child for COVID-19-like symptoms (see list below) before sending their child to school. The school will check body temperatures as students arrive. Students will continue to be observed throughout the day for any signs of COVID-19-like symptoms.

 

To review, the COVID-19-like symptoms are as follows:

If a student's temperature reads 99.4 or higher and/or symptoms are observed at any time through the school day, the student will be sent to our Student Health Center to be assessed further by a school nurse. If our school nurse determines the student is showing COVID-19-like symptoms, a parent/guardian will be contacted for immediate pick-up. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of keeping your child(ren) home if s/he does not feel well or has symptoms. 

 

The decision to quarantine a student/group of students may vary; we will use the decision aid chart developed by the Maryland Department of Health and the Maryland State Department of Education to guide our decision. MSD's principal offices will send a letter to those who need to quarantine.

 

MSD will strive to minimize the disruption to student learning during the quarantine period; if a student is quarantined, their absence from school will be excused and their school work will be sent home. If a student needs support during this period, they may contact their teacher.

 

We will continue to enforce and emphasize the importance of M.S.D.:

Moving forward, we will only communicate laboratory-confirmed positive cases with the community. 

 

What used to be a Recovery Plan will now be called the Reopening Guide. We will be sharing a working draft which means that the criteria and recommendations are based on known factors at the time of writing. As more information becomes available, the guidelines will be updated as appropriate or within every six months until 2024. We welcome feedback from our school community year round.

 

We also have a Pandemic Response Team dedicated to reviewing information from the CDC and the state, and we will continue to implement best practices as new information becomes available. 

 

I want to acknowledge that many of us still feel uncertain about what may come. As we get ready for the first day of school, let's hold onto the joy of being together in-person again. For many of our students, in-person instruction supports both their educational progress and their well-being. We need each other; we need to challenge our thinking together in-person. This is possible only if we enforce and practice safety precautions at all times.

 

Let's move forward together.

 

Jennifer Yost Ortiz

Interim Chief Educational Programs Officer

 

Video in ASL | Watch ASL Video