In Brief:
- Beginning Thursday (10/29) - Students in grade 12 will begin learning remotely.
- Beginning Monday (11/2) - Students in grades 7-12 will begin learning remotely. These grades will continue to attend classes remotely until the number of combined cases in the cities of Walla Walla and College Place drop below 300/100,000.
- Beginning Monday (11/2)- Students in grades 4-6 will be learning via Hybrid AM/PM cohorts. This will continue until the number of combined cases in the cities of Walla Walla and College Place drop below 300/100,000. These students will move to remote learning if the number of cases rises above 400/100,000.
- For Grades K-3 - Students in grades K-3 will continue with in-person learning at this time. These students will move to Hybrid AM/PM cohorts if the number of cases rises above 400/100,000. The learning modality for these grades If the number of combined cases rises above 500/100,000 has yet to be determined.
Please contact your teachers, Mr. Lesko, or Father Seidel if any of these changes are heavily burdensome for your family. We know that this is difficult for everyone, and we want to do what we to can to help.
Please review the Learning Modality Chart below.
Dear WWCS parents,
On Monday, I sent out a message to our school community explaining that the students in grades 7-12 would be transitioning into Hybrid AM/PM cohorts this week because of the recent rise in COVID-19 cases for the cities of Walla Walla and College Place. However, the data that we had received from the Health Department at that time only reflected the number of cases up to October 23. We recently received updated information from the Health Department showing the number of cases up to October 26, showing that the total number of combined cases for Walla Walla and College Place has increased to 301 per 100,000. We anticipate that by next week that number will be even higher.
Unfortunately, this second rise in case count triggers another change in our learning modality for grades 7-12 as well as grades 4-6. Following our established metric (as can be seen in the chart above), next week we will be entering the learning modality that corresponds to a case count between 300-400 cases per 100,000. This means that students in grades 7-12 will be learning remotely, and students in grades 4-6 will be learning via Hybrid AM/PM cohorts, starting Monday, November 2.
Each week we will be monitoring case numbers and making a decision about the potential change in our learning modalities for the next week. We are hoping to avoid rapidly switching back and forth between different schedules. Our decisions will be based on the data provided by the Walla Walla Health Department, and will correspond with the Learning Modality Chart that can be viewed above.
I have chosen to wait until Monday to implement this shift so as to ensure that all students and families have been informed of the changing learning mode.
For students in grades 7-12, class schedules will be the same as the remote learning schedule from the beginning of the year.
For students in grades 4-6, they will be in the same cohort they had been in at the beginning of the year. Our teachers will be reminding them in class what cohort that is.
More information about schedules will be sent out in the Weekly News tomorrow, and will be communicated through teachers.
As an important note, we have had only two confirmed COVID-19 cases amongst our student body at this point, with both of these cases originating from outside of the school. One of those cases is a 7th grade student, and the other is a 12th grade student. Out of an abundance of caution, the entire 7th grade class has been learning remotely this week, and the 12th grade classes will begin learning remotely starting tomorrow, Thursday, October 29.
To be clear, these decisions regarding the shift of learning modalities are not at all connected with those two particular positive cases, but are only as a result of the overall numbers of COVID-19 cases in our cities.
I continue to pray for you and for our community, and I encourage all of you lift up our Walla Walla Catholic School community in your own prayers as well.
In Christ,
Fr. Curtis Seidel
President, WWCS