Ponca City Public Schools COVID-19 update

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Ponca City Public Schools COVID-19 update

Tue, 09/15/2020 - 14:13
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September 13, 2020

Dear PCPS Parents, Staff, and Community Members:

Below you will find the weekly update informing our public of the COVID-19 positive cases and quarantined, close contact totals for PCPS occurring the week of September 7. However, you may refer to the PCPS Contact Tracing Totals Spreadsheet each evening for daily updates. The link to the spreadsheet is at the top of the homepage on our district website: www.pcps.us

Of course, we had one fewer school days last week due to the holiday, but our positive school cases were down from 4 the week of August 31 to 2 last week, and our close contacts from the positives were down from 120 the previous week to 66 last week. Without doubt, positives cases in the school make a huge impact on the number of individuals affected by quarantines. Even though Kay County’s COVID-19 Risk Level went up, our school cases and close contacts went down.

Thank you for helping us keep students and staff safe, out of quarantine, and in school by keeping students at home if someone who lives in the home has tested “positive” for COVID 19. We are very appreciative of the many calls from parents who told us they were advised by the Kay County Health Department to quarantine their children because of a positive in the home. We have completed 14 days of school: 9 days with NO POSITIVES; 5 days with POSITIVES.

As a reminder, we are having our first Distance Learning Practice Day on September 14. This day was previously a Professional Development Day for staff, so students would not have been in school anyway. The day has been converted to an instructional day to provide students the opportunity to practice Distance Learning in the event of a quarantine or temporary closure. Please see our previous press release and video explaining the process. The press release and video may be found on our district website at www.pcps.us.

On September 14, students will log in to the class assigned by their teacher and will complete and submit one assignment to be counted present for the day. Teachers will be available form 8:00 to 11:00 AM for support, but students may submit the completed assignment any time before midnight. We will be serving free grab and go meals on Distance Learning Day from 11:00-12:30 at the following locations: Po-Hi, Garfield Elementary, Union Elementary and West Middle School.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this challenging time. Our greatest priority is the health and safety of our students, staff, and community members, and we want our students to be prepared to learn from home in the event of a quarantine or partial school closure. We will continue to stay in constant communication with our families and patrons.

Please feel free to contact Curtis Layton, Executive Director of Human Resources, or me with any questions at 580-767-8000.