Dear Team, 

Almost two weeks ago, I made the decision to continue our planning work towards an October 26 partial re-open.  This decision was conditional on revisiting the state of COVID on or before October 16. At that time, I reiterated that if it is unsafe to return to school, I will make a decision to not return.  

I have made the very difficult decision today to pause our return to school plans in our Denver and Aurora middle schools through the end of the first trimester.  We will also scale back our high school learning center plan to start with fewer students and begin those on 11/2.  To ensure that we will be serving our most vulnerable middle school students, we will be working to open similar middle school learning centers on 11/2.  And finally, we will be re-opening our Center Programs to serve our most vulnerable populations. We are currently finalizing an opening date with DPS. 

Why did I make this decision?  As I have shared with you since we started considering a return to school this past June, we would make that decision based on these principles: 

• We will ground our decisions in science
• We will prioritize safety to ensure we can keep the DSST community healthy
• We will consider the educational needs of our students and families 
• We will communicate transparently and in a timely fashion (giving advance notice of decisions when possible)
• We will extend grace to each other and all parts of the community as we navigate this process together 

Based on the current science and direction from Denver’s public health department, it is prudent to pause significant re-opening. There has been a notable increase in COVID cases in Denver and Adams counties.  Public health experts are very concerned that we are still on the upward side of this spike.  While public health officials are clear that COVID transmission in schools is very low, when community transmission reaches a high enough level, COVID cases can enter schools.  The doctors, whom I’ve been working closely with, have advised us to open secondary schools in smaller, more controlled ways to serve our most vulnerable students.  Lastly, I appreciate all the good feedback you gave on the pulse survey.  I read every single survey and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the responses.     

This is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made, as I know what this means for our students.  Many, many of our students are hurting right now.  They are struggling academically and social-emotionally.  Our attendance, student grades and student wellness data tells me that we are not reaching our most vulnerable 20% of students - close to 1,000 students.  Many students have told us they need to be back in school as their home environments are not conducive to learning online school.  While I believe we can, and we will, get better serving our students online, I also know that there is no data or research nationally that supports online is better than in-person learning.

All that said, I believe that this is the right decision. However, we need to double down in the weeks ahead to serve our students better - to meet the most vulnerable students' needs with some in-person support and to strengthen our online program.  I look forward to doing that together as we try to close out our first trimester strongly. 

I will be staying in close contact with our health partners in Denver and Aurora over the coming weeks with an eye to making a decision for Trimester 2 in the middle of November.  

I know that a tremendous amount of time has been spent on planning for a return to school.  Thank you for all of those efforts - they will go to good use. We will continue to focus on getting ready to safely host students in buildings next week as we prepare for a much more limited return. 

Thank you again for all of your hard work.  I am grateful for your ongoing work supporting our students.  

Bill