We are doing our best to keep you informed and up to date on the rapidly changing COVID-19 outbreak. Thank you for the amazing work you do serving our students each day in these strange times. Your leadership and love for our students will help them feel more settled in these unsettling circumstances.
As you have likely heard, Governor Jared Polis has declared a State of Emergency for Colorado in response to the Coronavirus, or COVID-19. Ultimately, this decision ensures that the State can access Federal Emergency Assistance funding and does not necessarily mean that anything on the ground is substantially different than yesterday.
Because we share so many campuses with DPS and APS, we will follow the protocols and plans of our district partners in DPS and APS, and if those plans differ from each other (APS vs. DPS), we will keep you informed on any key decision points.
Here is a summary of the latest developments.
Travel Ban
DPS announced yesterday a ban on all out-of-state or international school-sponsored trips. DSST will also implement the same ban. This is a difficult decision as many of you have spent a lot of time planning fantastic trips for our students. However, student and staff health safety must come first. Sadly, this means that DSST school trips planned between now and May 1st will also need to be canceled. “DSST sponsored” means trips that originated with us or that we are paying for, and includes out-of-state and international trips. We will be working closely with the School Director at each school that has a trip planned on the logistical next steps for these cancellations. If you were planning to attend a DSST-sponsored professional development conference between now and May 1st, these trips will also need to be cancelled.
At this point, no future trips should be planned until further notice, as the May 1st date may need to be extended. We have not made a decision about cancelling summer trips, but it may come to that.
This travel ban does not apply to personal trips, but we encourage you to use caution. If you are planning a vacation or personal trip to a country that the CDC has determined to have an Alert – Level 2 or Warning – Level 3 we ask that you notify your School Director (or Service Team lead for Home Office employees) asap. Further guidance may come about traveling to heavily affected states within the US.
Regular School Activities
As of now, all regular school activities should continue as normal, including Parent-Teacher conferences and all other school-based events. Our upcoming College Summit for our high school juniors continues to be on, but we will be evaluating all guidance and new information in the coming days.
Staff Health
We want to ensure that you stay healthy and that we do not unnecessarily contribute to the spreading of COVID-19. If you experience any COVID-19 symptoms, please stay home and see a healthcare professional immediately. DSST will offer additional sick leave if you need it. Please work with your School Director who will work with the Home Office to coordinate.
Be sure you are partnering with your managers to ensure any days off are captured accurately in Workday. This is critical so we can monitor the overall health of our team. If you need a quick refresher on how to do this, see this guide. The Colorado Department of Health is asking that we all help track patterns. If you suspect you have the flu it would be helpful for us to know that as well.
Online Learning for our Students
In the event that DPS and APS closes schools in the coming weeks or months, our home office team is preparing our capacity to teach our students online. Through our Microsoft Teams and Google classroom platforms, we have the capacity to provide instruction to our students. While we are fortunate to have this capacity, we are currently evaluating the more difficult issues of how to ensure we can reach all of our students digitally and to ensure that we can do so in an equitable way.
Stay tuned on next steps we all may need to take to activate these platforms for online learning.
COVID-19 Resources
Below you will find a comprehensive list of resources from DPS, APS, and the state of Colorado.
Thank you for taking the time to read this information and stay up to date. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you as informed as we are able. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.