Family Update | Jan. 14
LISD Families,
As we prepare for a three-day weekend (Monday is a holiday for all students and staff), I want to touch base with you and tell you about some changes you may see on your student’s campus.
We continue to battle the spread of COVID in our schools and in our community. Student cases are hovering between 1-2% across the district, with some schools feeling a greater impact than others. Our staff members - teachers, office staff, administrators, food service, custodial, bus drivers, substitute teachers - are also feeling the effects of the virus. As you can imagine, it becomes very difficult to operate schools when you don’t have enough staff members to cover all the needs. In fact, school districts across the state have closed campuses or even the whole district over the last couple of days to try and give staff members a chance to recover from illness. In LISD, we closed our early childhood center for several days this week and into next week.
I share this with you because we must change some of our practices to help stop the spread of COVID among both students and staff. I want to strongly encourage you to have your students wear masks to school. I am aware there are many opinions on this issue, and we are not putting a mask mandate in place. But for those who are willing, please take that step for us.
Modified Tier 3 Mitigation Measures
At the elementary and middle school levels, we are moving to what we are calling a modified Tier 3, which means that as necessary, schools may implement many of the strategies on our Tier 3 list. However, it is important to note that every school may be a little bit different, depending on their specific situation. I expect that most ES and MS campuses will limit visitors, social distance and limit group work as much as possible, and maybe even modify school arrival and dismissal procedures. The procedures at your school may change depending on their circumstances, and they will communicate with you as needed to keep you informed of those changes.
COVID Case Reporting
We are doing our best to offer extended hours for COVID Case Reporting and have an online form available for you to submit your information. Please check the district website for hours and reporting options.
Thank you for your support
I want to ask for your continued support and patience with our staff members. Everyone is doing the best they can to serve our students and keep schools open. We know being in school and learning from our outstanding teachers is the best thing for students. The last 20+ months have been incredibly challenging for all of us, and it is more important than ever that we show kindness, understanding and patience. There is no playbook for this type of situation, and I assure you, everyone in LISD is working as hard as possible to make the best decisions we can. We continue to rely on local health experts and guidance from the Texas Education Agency as we determine our plans.
We put together this video for you that highlights some of our efforts and provides more context for some of the mitigation measures we have in place.
I appreciate your support for all our teachers and staff, and for LISD.
Gary Patterson
Interim Superintendent
Lewisville ISD
