— from Eric Webb, Orcas Schools Superintendent —
The information surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve by the hour. [Friday morning I travelled] to Anacortes to ESD 189 to gather more information regarding the legal and educational aspects of an extended district closure.
Our top priority, has and will continue to be the health and safety of our students and staff.
In the next few hours or days, we will advance and notify our students, families, and community of an extended district closure consisting of several weeks (a five-six week window is currently recommended by OSPI).
Over the next few days, we will make preparations and plans as a faculty and staff for such a closure to take place. To our advantage, we have Student Conferences scheduled next week which gives us a dedicated time to communicate our plans in detail with each of our families.
This is uncharted territory in education for our district, state, and nation; there will undoubtedly be many questions over the next few days and weeks as we navigate through the process of a pending closure. I will continue to stay in close communication with local, county, state, and national organizations as this situation evolves, and provide updates to our staff and community.
SEE ALSO: https://theorcasonian.com/in-covid-19-response-orcas-schools-close-for-six-weeks/
Thank you Eric for taking this necessary and courageous step!
BTW, what are ESD 189 and OSPI? Give us all the info; we shouldn’t have to google it ourselves.
Dan, I agree, it is not easy to shutdown a school district for the length of time proposed. Many things are affected, kids with working parents being home, breakfast and lunch for many of our children possibly not provided, educational seat time and more; all of education delivery will be affected, high school seniors will have to work harder to finish required courses and so on.
But to your question: ESD stands for Educational Services District and in the state of Washington there are, I believe, ten or thirteen such ESD’s throughout the state. Their purpose is to assist school districts in their geographical areas in staff training, budget advice and oversight, INformation Technology support and more. ESD 189 covers school districts in San Juan, Skagit, Whatcom and island counties.
OSPI is the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and it is led by a publicly elected official who serves as its superintendent. Chris Reykdal is the current superintendent. OSPI is the governing body on how school districts deliver curriculum and other educational requirements. They have the final word on school budgets, state funding allocation to the districts, they certify faculty and administration personnel, they oversee graduation requirements and more.
Dan, I didn’t mean to respond in stead of Superintendent Webb, but I would think that Mr. Webb has his hands full making sure that the hundreds of Orcas students and staff are kept safe and in a healthy environment. So my apologies.