July 3, 2020

Dear Parents and Community,

Thanks to so many of you who joined us on Monday evening for the Re-Opening our Schools Virtual Meeting. We had 437 people who logged on to the two meetings and, using the chat feature, we had a robust chat at both times. Both meetings are available on our District website www.dfsd.org in the Spotlight section and we encourage parents to watch one or both of the presentations when their schedule permits. 

I hope that it is clear that the District is fully committed to (Option 1) bringing 100% of our students back to school in September. This is the target we are aiming for and our Task Force subcommittees will be working on all of the associated moving parts with consideration of the guidance and parameters to which we will have to adhere. It is essential that we plan for all three options - including the hybrid model (Option 2) and the fully remote learning model (Option 3) as we may be required by NYS SED to upload plans for all three scenarios. So much is still uncertain and we are awaiting guidance from New York State which we expect in mid-July.

In our meetings, I asked parents to take action in lobbying the Board of Regents to suspend standardized testing for the 2020-2021 school year in order to allow teachers to best meet the needs of the learners in their classrooms without having to be beholden to standardized testing requirements. This decision needs to be made sooner rather than later. A decision about this later on in the school year will not be helpful. As promised, the email addresses are as follows:

RegentsOffice@nysed.gov  
Regent.Rosa@nysed.gov   
Regent.Wills@nysed.gov   

Parent voices are heard the loudest in Albany - at times, yours are the only voices that make a difference. I think that it is essential for parents to speak up so that our teachers and students can focus on what is important - addressing instructional gaps, closing them, and moving on into the new school year.

The Re-Opening Task Force and the subcommittees are organizing and will be meeting next week. Another Re-Opening our Schools Update Meeting will be planned for July 20th in the hope that we will have the necessary guidance from SED and can share more specific plans. We are developing a Re-Opening our Schools website where information will be shared to keep parents informed. This will be up and running shortly and the names of Re-Opening Task Force and subcommittee members will be posted there.

I know that this continues to be a stressful and uncertain time for everyone. Your feedback continues to be extraordinarily helpful and you can expect to see a transportation survey shortly if you have children at Springhurst.

We appreciate your input and support as we work quickly to organize for September. 

Best wishes for the summer days ahead!

Lisa Brady, Ed.D.
Superintendent