TMS CLOSED January 12-14 Due to COVID

TALAWANDA SCHOOL DISTRICT

131 W. Chestnut Street, Oxford, Ohio  45056  ❘  www.talawanda.org

Talawanda School District EMPOWERS Every Learner Every Day!

January 11, 2022

Talawanda Middle School will be Closed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

COVID-19 continues to change and evolve over time.  The Omicron strain is becoming predominant in our state.   We are seeing many COVID-19 positive cases, likely due to increased social gatherings during the holidays.  There was a huge increase today of COVID-19 positive cases and quarantines at TMS.  

TMS will be closed on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (January 12, 13, and 14, 2022) due to the impacts of COVID-19.  Currently, 14 TMS staff members are absent.  There are not enough substitutes to operate TMS safely.  Also, TMS has a 29.5% student absentee rate.  TMS had 102 students absent yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday) has 207 students absent.

Many students and staff have become positive for COVID-19 over the holiday.  We are now seeing those effects and, hopefully, will only see those effects for another 2 weeks.  

It is CRITICAL to keep any children home who are sick, positive for the virus, exhibiting COVID symptoms, placed on quarantine by BCHD, or live with someone in the family who is positive, exhibiting symptoms, or already ill.  We continue to see children who are sick, have symptoms, are positive, and live with family members who exhibit one of these conditions that are still choosing to come to school.  This must stop in order to be able to achieve our goal of keeping our schools open to in-person learning.

We need everyone to work together.  We want our schools to stay open, but cannot keep the schools open (even with a mask mandate) if children continue to come to our schools knowingly sick, positive, exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, or living with family members who have the same symptoms as listed above.  Please keep your child home if they are sick/symptomatic/exposed/or have a positive case in their home.  Please call the administrator or nurse, and we will provide you with the next steps.  

We are close in each building to being forced to shut down.  Bogan has a 15.8% student absenteeism rate.  Kramer has a 14.9% student absenteeism rate.  Marshall has a 16% student absenteeism rate.  Lastly, THS has a 15.6% student absenteeism rate.  We also have many staff who are absent in each building.

Unfortunately, many other schools are also closing in our area, including our closest neighboring district.  We hope that closing will provide time to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus and allow us to operate the building safely (with sufficient numbers of staff working).

TMS students will follow the schedule below:

1. Wednesday, January 12, 2022-Asynchronous Learning.  Students will check with their teacher for assignments.  Teachers will email students with directions and expectations.

2. Thursday, January 13, 2022 and Friday, January 14, 2022-Remote Learning.  Zoom schedules will be posted in Google classroom on Wednesday by 4 PM. Students will be provided links and directions by their teachers.  Students who have internet connection issues need to contact their teacher for alternative assignments.

3. Monday, January 17, 2022-Talawanda School District is closed for ALL students and staff to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King.

4. Tuesday, January 18, 2022-TMS staff and students return back to TMS.

5. ALL TMS Extra-Curricular Activities including athletics are also cancelled or postponed from January 12, 2022 to January 17, 2022.

We hope to not have to close any other schools.  We are monitoring the situation and will make decisions based upon COVID-19 conditions and spread.

We still strongly recommend everyone wear masks and become vaccinated.  Please note: cloth masks have been determined to offer very little protection against the Omicron COVID-19 strain.  Medical masks such as surgical masks that are 3 ply offer some protection.  K-95 masks offer the best protection.  

As stated at last night’s Board of Education meeting, I will implement measures such as remote learning, short/long term closings, mask mandates, or other options if we cannot operate our schools safely, see unsafe spread of COVID-19 in our buildings, or have absenteeism rates over 20%.  We need everyone to help us reduce the amount of children coming to our schools sick, ill, positive, exhibiting COVID-19, or living with anyone with these conditions.  I cannot emphasize enough the importance of our families working with us to keep us open to in-person learning.

In Education,

Dr. Edward Theroux

Dr. Edward Theroux

Talawanda Superintendent