Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Port Angeles School Superintendent Marty Brewer joined the Todd Ortloff Show Tuesday and was first asked to talk about the first 2 days back in school for Kindergarteners, which started yesterday.
“It was a wonderful day in public education to see our students come back. All of the things that you hear around, ‘Well, students can’t do this and they won’t do that’ was non-existent. Our students came in they spaced themselves accordingly with, you know, support of staff, were masked. It was just a phenomenal day. Brought a smile to my face and, you know, after four months of work, to actually see the plan in action it was a glorious day in education and it’s the sign of good thins to come.”
Brewer said, now more than ever, moving ahead and keeping everyone safe is a partnership with parents. He pointed out the daily attestation parents have to sign that says their child is symptom-free, required by the Dept. of Health. There’s social distancing on the school buses, and all the procedures to follow once kids get to school, including a temperature check.
“I know there’s a lot of frustration out in the community around, ‘We’re not moving fast enough’. But you know, I want to move slow to move fast. I don’t want to have a regressive step. Really it’s about success, and I’ve been asked the question of , ‘What does success mean?’. Well, it comes in two parts. Number one, the community transmission rate stays down in the Port Angeles community, or Clallam County, and it is. It continues to stay down, and I’m really excited for that. But number two, we don’t have an outbreak or community transmission within our schools. If we practice all of our safety measures that we put in place, we can we can avoid that and that’s the ultimate goal here.”
Brewer says he and the School Board will have a statement by the end of the week about moving forward with the next groups of students.
In Sequim, Superintendent Rob Clark told us Tuesday they are gradually moving special needs students into classrooms this week, and Kindergarteners will start school on October 26.