York County News

Radnor Senior High School issued the following announcement.

Dear Radnor Families and Staff,

So, it turns out navigating a global pandemic doesn’t get any easier over time for any of us!

Beginning Monday, November 30, our middle school and high school program will shift to all-virtual education for one week and return to hybrid instruction on Monday, December 7. Our elementary program will remain in hybrid.

Our staff continue to do extraordinary work each day, but as a result of high community spread and circumstances beyond anyone’s control, we were unable to fully staff our buildings at RMS and RHS this past week. We had over 20 new quarantines this week that resulted in more than 10 classrooms with no substitutes available. After being open for eight weeks in hybrid, our contact tracing being done in coordination with Chester County Health Department suggests that positive cases are not being transmitted within our buildings. Exposures outside of school, which require two week quarantines, are significantly impacting our ability to staff our buildings. This is not our staff’s fault; rather, it is the result of high community spread. Many of us assumed school would be the center of community spread; ironically, as of now, it appears life outside of school is resulting in greater spread at this point.

We continue to make decisions about our learning phases based on three critical criteria:

1. Our experience operating in hybrid for the past eight weeks. We will continue to monitor our positive cases and rates of transmission.
2. Rates of community spread and guidance from the Chester County Health Department.
3. Our ability to staff our buildings and classrooms.

Based on the first criteria, our schools should remain open in hybrid. The second criteria gives us pause right now; however, the Chester County Health Department still recommends we keep schools open. Unfortunately, the third criteria requires us to move to virtual for one week at just RMS and RHS as we wait for the most recent round of quarantines to conclude. While RMS and RHS are all-virtual, we can redirect all existing substitutes and support staff to the elementary program. Tomorrow will be a challenge for us, but since it is a short week, we have a plan to remain open as scheduled.

Based on all the current data, we are hopeful that the all-virtual learning for the secondary program will be limited to only one week. However, we will continue to monitor the data and if there are any significant changes to any of the three critical criteria we will keep our community posted.

While none of this has been easy for any of us, I could not be more thankful and proud of our staff, students and community. Our staff continue to go above and beyond to provide the best educational experience for our students under these uncertain circumstances. Our students have seamlessly accepted the responsibility of adhering to our protocols. I am so grateful for all the parental support and patience.

If we want to keep school open, we need to recommit ourselves to our protocols in school and outside of school. We cannot let our guard down. We have all worked so hard as a community to keep our schools open. Let’s continue to mask at all times and stay home when we don’t feel well.

I wish our community a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be thankful for, even during this pandemic.

Sincerely,

Ken

Kenneth E. Batchelor

Superintendent of Schools

Original source can be found here.