November 16, 2020

 

Dear Mechanicsburg Area School District Families,

 

We wish to make you aware that three middle school staff members and two middle school students tested positive for COVID-19.  Including these most recent additions, we are now actively monitoring seven positive cases in the Middle School alone.  The present situation leads us to make the difficult decision to move the Mechanicsburg Middle School to “full-remote” learning from Tuesday, November 17^th through Tuesday, November 24^th. As a reminder, students will be off Wednesday, November 25^th through Monday, November 30th.   

 

While we believe maximizing the engagement of students in person at school is essential, there are several factors that contribute to the decision to move to a “full-remote” phase: 

• Our collaboration with our local physician panel and the PA Departments of Health and Education as well as working within accordance of our MASD Health & Safety Plan. 
• The number of positive cases within this specific school.
• While many of these positive cases can be traced back to exposures outside of the school environment, several of them have an unknown origin.
• These positive cases are coupled with a rising number of students and staff quarantined due to “symptoms and risk factors”.  This leads to the concern that we will learn of additional positive cases in this school in the coming days.
• The spread of COVID-19 in our community is “substantial” with an increasing incidence rate and positivity rate over the last week.

 

With this move to “full-remote”, there will be no Middle School extracurricular activities beginning November 17th and until further notice.  Use of the Middle School facility by other schools or organizations will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

 

In the midst of this challenging time, I take great pride in the amazing work our staff is doing with our students in the hybrid model.  At the same time, we have been preparing for the possibility of facing a need to adjust.  We stand ready to continue to provide outstanding learning experiences for our students with many improvements from last spring’s remote learning.  Middle School families, you will hear more directly from Mr. Yohn about both synchronous online and asynchronous learning experiences that students will engage in while fully-remote.  We will also continue monitoring the status of our other buildings to maintain the healthiest and safest environment possible while educating our students.

 

We appreciate your continued support of our entire Wildcat community!

 

Yours in Education,

 

Mark K. Leidy, Ed. D.

Superintendent of Schools

Mechanicsburg Area School District