Valley Unified School District Lays Out Four Phased Plan for Reopening

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - It will soon be time for kids in the St. John Valley area to return to school. 

The Valley Unified School District has come up with a four phase plan to allow students to safely return to school. 

The first phase of the plan, known as the resumption phase, ended in June when they began to formulate ideas for students to safely come back. 

Right now, they are in the second phase of the plan, known as the Recovery Phase, where staff slowly returns back to the school. 

“We began to see a return to the workplace, starting with half days and staggered shifts. Ultimately, we were all able to return with appropriate physical distancing, paying attention to ensuring we had our masks and doing pre-screenings upon entering the building.”

Peter Caron is the Coordinator of Innovative Practice and Community Outreach for the Valley Unified Education Center, and he says the Recovery Phase will come to a close at the end of this month. 

He says phase three, The Recalibration Phase, will take over at the end of this month, where they hope to make the focus learning new things this year once the students are caught up from last year. 

“We hope to be able to focus all of our time, our energy and our attention on what they need to learn this year. We will be focusing on what they need to learn this year from the outset, but we want to focus more of our attention on what they need to learn this year to the greatest extent possible.”

The recalibration phase will conclude in mid-October. The final phase is known as the Reconstitution phase, which will be ongoing for the remainder of the school year. In this phase they will be doing individualized plans for each grade group.

Caron says they will also be looking to fill any gaps that students might have experienced from remote learning as well. 

“Of course we’re going to have to be paying attention also to any ongoing gaps in learning and closing those gaps while also being focused on what students need to learn this year.”

Students at the Valley Unified Middle/High Schools will return at 50% capacity on August 27th, with the other half on August 28th. Elementary Schools will start on September 10th and 11th, and Pre-K will begin on September 21st.

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