Good evening,
As you’ve heard, it has been announced that all Minnesota Schools will be shutdown from March 18th – March 27th. I understand this creates numerous issues for our families, but rest assured our staffs at Perham Public and Private Schools are working on plans to continue to meet the needs of our students during the shutdown. All staff are required to attend work during the shutdown to help plan lessons and prepare for a possible extension of the shutdown. We are currently preparing plans to provide meals for all children that need them during the course of the shutdown, no matter their resources and no matter what school they attend. We are also preparing to provide child care for students age 12 and under who are children of essential healthcare staff in our school district. Information on the meals program and childcare will come out as soon as we finalize these plans.
Some schools in our area plan to begin their shutdown on Monday. Perham Schools (public and private) will be open March 16th and 17th to give families more time to prepare. We also plan to use these days to gather information from students and families to help better prepare us for the Distance Learning that takes effect March 30th. This includes information like: internet capabilities at home and school-provided meals program participation. We also feel it is important for our staff to get an opportunity to communicate with our students before the shutdown, and hopefully answer the many questions they may have about the weeks ahead. All after school activities are suspended effective immediately. This includes all practices and games.
There will be no instruction provided during the eight day shutdown. These days are intended to give our staff the time it takes to develop our District Distance Learning platform, which will look different depending on the age of the students. This platform will be shared and explained to students and parents by March 26th.
This will be a very challenging situation for all of us, but we are fortunate to have amazing staff, students, and communities to support each other as we navigate through this. We appreciate your patience and understanding!
Mitch Anderson
Superintendent
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