Posted October 6, 2021
Hello Skinner Families,
With our COVID guidelines in place, we are making every effort to maintain in-person learning as safely as possible. We are working to sustain our systems – in connection with masks, lunch protocols, and student illnesses.
We are asking for your partnership and support with the following topics:
Masks – Masks are required to be worn indoors. It is an expectation that Skinner Scholars come to school with multiple masks — an extra one to be stored in Trapper Keeper, just in case one breaks or gets lost. We are currently handing out approximately 150 disposable masks every day.
Beginning on Monday, October 4th, if a student comes to school without a mask, we will document their name and have them call home. The purpose of this phone call is to provide notification of the expectation and collaborate on next steps to ensure it does not happen again. We are willing to provide washable masks for families in need – please contact Skinner’s Health Tech Para arthur_espejo@dpsk12.org or call at 720-424-1452.
Student Illness – Please do not send your student if they are exhibiting any symptoms! Students who are sick and/or exhibiting infectious disease symptoms should stay home using these guidelines: COVID Screening & Decision-Making Tree, When to Keep Sick Children Home (English), When to Keep Sick Children Home (Español) If you choose to keep your child home, please follow regular attendance reporting protocols by calling Skinner Main Office at 720-424-1420.
If your child feels sick during the school day, your child needs to notify a teacher/staff member as soon as possible. Students will be directed to the Nurse’s Office – to ensure adequate response and isolation measures. Our School Nurse/Health Tech Paraprofessional will contact parents/guardians to arrange for the student to be picked up. A student may not contact a parent directly (by email/phone) to arrange for pick-up without seeing the Nurse first.
In the case of a student illness, students cannot return to school until the symptoms have been resolved for 24 hours. For example, if your child stays home on Monday due to illness, your child cannot return to school until Wednesday.
Lunch – Due to our commitment to heightened safety measures, students eat lunch outside to minimize off-mask exposure. To speak bluntly, we are having significant issues with student behavior surrounding food (not throwing away trash, throwing food at each other and/or throwing food on the sidewalks/fields, kicking/crushing full milk cartons, etc). It is extremely disappointing and unacceptable. We would appreciate your partnership in talking to your child about responsible behavior during lunch.
In the case of inclement weather, we will need to explore alternate lunch frameworks. If students are not able to eat lunch outside, we will have students eat in the lunchroom in rotations – in order for students to be seated at least 3 feet away from each other unmasked. With quarantine guidelines, students will not need to be quarantined if they are unmasked for less than 15 minutes. Unfortunately, with rotations, it means that students will have a reduced amount of time to eat their lunch – approximately 10 minutes, to allow time for transitions. I apologize for this – however, the only other alternative is to have 200+ students eating in the lunchroom together. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide opportunities for students to eat in classrooms, due to lack of supervision – aligned to the teacher contract.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns – let’s work together to keep Skinner safe and clean!
Julie Stephens, Principal