Dear Families,

Since my last message about wearing masks on school buses, we have seen an improvement with students consistently wearing masks on bus runs. While this is an important safety protocol to reduce the chances of virus transmission, we must also follow assigned seating charts on school buses so we can perform accurate contact tracing and avoid unnecessary quarantines. If students do not remain in their assigned seats and a positive case is reported on a bus, we are unable to identify who was sitting within six feet of the positive individual. Without seating charts, we have to put the entire bus on a mandatory 10-day quarantine if a positive case is reported – even for students who were not actually close contacts. We do not want this situation to negatively impact our families or our students’ educations, so we urge you to speak with your child(ren) about the importance of staying in their assigned seats on the school bus to avoid unnecessary quarantines. We thank you for your cooperation and teamwork to keep our students safe and learning in the classroom as much as possible.

Very truly yours,

Dr. Maria Lagana Suttmeier, Ed.D.
Superintendent