FCPS School Board Update - Jan 5th
Hi Common Ground Community,
I watch the FCPS School Board Meetings so that you don’t have to!
The School Board had a work session today that began at 3pm and ended around 8:45pm tonight. First, let me say that I have been listening to these meetings since July and every single member of our school board, whether you agree with each members politics or not, is doing the very best they can to represent their district, our community, and with the best interest of our students and teachers in mind.
And if you are curious, the board, after hearing from the principals associations that 75% were not comfortable with the proposed return to school timeline and the uptick in cases/percent positivity, urged the leadership team to work on a new plan. The school board voted to table return to school until the next work session, on February 2nd, with an update in 2 weeks at the budget work session. At this time, there will be no change to the virtual learning in Fairfax County - including no change to the new bell schedule.
While the topic was ‘Return to School’ for this school year, Dr. Brabrand was asked if he thought that the 2021-2022 school year would begin fully in person. His answer sited the Washington Post article “The Health 202: When will 2021 feel normal again? Here's what eight experts predict” and said that it could be April, but it could be January 2022. With that in mind, Common Ground is going ahead with plans for a Kindergarten for the 2021-2022 school year! We will share more information on our plans later this week!
Vaccination was also discussed at length. Educators - including childcare providers - are in group 1b, the next group that will be eligible for the COVID vaccination. While Dr. Gloria and the Fairfax County Health Department doesn’t have a timeline for group 1b - that guidance will come from the state - we know that we will be soon! The school board voted to send notice to the Governor to ask that educators be prioritized. While I am in full support of our county teachers being prioritized for vaccinations, I’m concerned that child care providers, who aren’t unified under a large body, like the school board, might get lost in the shuffle.
With that in mind, I am communicating with the health department, the department of social services, and even school board members today, to advocate for childcare providers. Earlier this week, however, I was more concerned with making sure that Common Ground’s staff could access the vaccine, but after the meeting last night, I think my voice needs to be used to advocate for all childcare providers!
Once 1b is a “go” for vaccination, we will share our plan with you all. I am hopeful that we can get all of Common Ground’s teachers vaccinated on the same days, hopefully on a Friday, so it may necessitate two “vaccination teacher workdays.” This will allow our teachers to get vaccinated and then stay home over the weekend while we recover from any of the vaccines effects.
Again, we have no time line at this point, but wanted to make sure you were aware of a possible vaccination process. Please, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas!
Tomorrow I will share some email templates and email addresses that you can use to help advocate for the vaccination of our childcare providers!
Thank you for supporting our teachers!
Liz
