Dear Parents and Guardians,
Happy New Year! At this time, we plan to proceed with in-person, half-day instruction for the remainder of the week. We will continue to work with the Hudson County Department of Health on a daily basis to monitor COVID-19 case data in Secaucus and to navigate the guidance from the New Jersey Department of Health as it is issued. In the meantime, we encourage all of our families who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or were exposed to a positive case to get tested. A no-cost, at-home PCR testing option is available at https://learn.vaulthealth.com/nj/.
As expected, we have had a significant increase in reported positive COVID-19 cases in the district over the past three days. We believe this is due to the holiday gatherings and travel that our staff and students have engaged in outside of our school district. These cases have impacted our in-person student populations, our transportation providers, and our teaching, support, and custodial staff negatively. However, we were still safely able to operate our school buildings today.
While we feel that the half-day schedule this week without the removal of masks will be successful in minimizing the spread of COVID, we are fully prepared to transition to our Emergency Virtual or Remote Instruction Plan, without advanced warning, if we experience:
• A staffing shortage that prevents us from safely operating our schools or transporting children to/from school
• COVID-19 student cases exceed 2% of the population at any given time
I will also continue to issue my “District Health Report” each Friday going forward. Please note that the next report will reflect approximately 2 ½ weeks of cases that may have not influenced our quarantines (a majority were isolated over break). I will also be providing an updated FAQ based on the questions asked in the “Parent Communication Form” on our website.
Sincerely,
Dr. Daniela Riser
Acting Superintendent
