As you know, the past few months have changed our lives in many ways. While there have been many times in history that events have dramatically impacted our country, public schools have mostly continued to operate in a relatively consistent and predictable manner. That trend stopped on March 16, 2020, when Governor DeWine closed all of Ohio’s schools, sending students home to be taught remotely.
Since that time, we’ve been trying to anticipate what school will look like for the coming year. We’ve had teams looking at various options, but until last Thursday (July 2), we had no guidance from the state to determine what could and couldn’t occur as we plan for the 2020-21 school year.
Governor DeWine announced that he strongly desires schools to reopen this fall – following the recommended public health practices. He issued a guidance report, “The Reset and Restart Education Planning Guide for Ohio Schools and Districts,” that we have been carefully evaluating.
We have been looking at a variety of plans to consider for the coming school year. With this new guidance, we are revisiting our initial ideas, carefully considering how this additional information may factor into the work we’ve done to date. We will discuss potential recommendations with the Groveport Madison Board of Education, knowing that Franklin County Public Health must approve any plan(s) we pursue.
We appreciate your patience. We know families are anxious for information, but we needed to make sure that any path we take can comply with the state’s guidance.
We will be reaching out to you once again to get your feedback on some of the options we’ve been considering. Your feedback is critical to informing the decisions we have to make in the next few weeks, so please take the few minutes it will take you to respond to our brief survey.
We will keep you informed of our work as we move forward. We will continue to provide information by telephone, email, and all information will be posted on our GoCruisers website.
Among our most significant concerns now and in the weeks and months to come is the physical and mental health of our students. We know many of them are anxious about the coming school year. Please reassure them that all of us will be doing our absolute best to make the best out of this challenging situation. School will undoubtedly be somewhat different from what it’s been in the past, but our caring and supportive staff will still be on hand to help our students every step of the way.
As always, thank you for your continued support and encouragement. We indeed are all in this together, and we know that Cruisers can take on any challenge when we work hard – and work together.
Garilee Ogden, superintendent
Groveport Madison Schools
