Saints Families,

The School District is starting to experience increased stress on staffing due to the illness we are experiencing in the St. James community.  We are starting to see an increase in COVID, as well as influenza and the common cold.  At this time, we are just able to cover staff absenteeism due to illness.  We will continue to work to stay open and staffed for our students.  I want to thank in advance the extra work all of the staff at SJPS is doing to cover for each other.  Simply put, we all know the toll distance learning takes on students, staff, and families.

In the instance that staffing would become a problem, we would handle the situation in this way.  First, we would determine if one or two weeks would be needed to allow everyone to become healthy.  We would notify families of the decision to move to distance learning, and send home materials at the end of the school day.  Because it is a staffing situation, there may not be extra days ahead of the decision.  The first day of distance learning would be like an eLearning day, in order to help families and staff plan for the following distance learning days.  The second day of distance learning would be run as a normal school day, much like our distance learning days from last year.  Once we are able to return staff at appropriate levels, we would return to in-person learning.

Again, right now, we are able to staff our schools.  I’d like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that masking does help keep illness out of the schools.  The school district highly recommends wearing a mask at this time.  

In Saints pride,

Dr. Steven Heil, Superintendent