From Supt. Dr. Christine Burton, August 20, 2020:
Dear Millburn Schools Community,
In our ongoing efforts to share information and data about our Return to School planning, this is a very important announcement regarding the start of school.
Millburn Schools will start the school year virtual for all students
- I will be recommending that the Board approve Millburn Schools to start the school year fully virtual for all students, as allowed by Governor Murphy’s Executive Order 175.
- Schools will start on September 8th as reflected in an updated calendar (requires board approval on Monday, August 24th). Moving the start date for students will allow our staff to use these additional days in the first week of September for professional development and preparations for virtual teaching.
- We anticipate schools will be virtual for the first quarter of the school year, which is until November 9. We will attempt to bring students in earlier on a phase-in plan. We will prioritize special populations, ELL, and Pre K-2 to start and then move up the grade levels. As students return to in-person instruction, there may be adjustments to their classroom assignment or schedule to accommodate. Contributing factors for starting school virtually:
- Health protocols: New protocols from the NJ Department of Health released last week require, rather than recommend, 6 feet of social distancing in classrooms. While we were planning to create 6-feet distances wherever possible, we must now comply with the 6-feet requirement for all student classrooms and spaces. This requirement impacts our class sizes, cohorts, and space use in our buildings. It also requires the restructuring of our schedules, cohorts and groupings which is not feasible at this point for a September start….
Read the full document here:
