From: Tim Piwowar Date: Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 6:18 PM Subject: Update To: ALL STAFF To all: Thank you all for your continued patience as we continue to address this rapidly changing situation. Please allow this update to address two main issues that we have been focused on today - staff work and pay, and educational opportunities for students. Each of these are addressed below. 1. Staff Work and Pay Effective tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17, 2020, all school buildings will be closed to all personnel with the exception of custodial staff, unless authorized by my office. At the present time, the only exception is a small staff needed to provide a bagged breakfast/lunch program for students that will be run out of BMHS. The expectation is that staff that are able to work remotely will do so. This includes, where appropriate, access to email and when necessary, availability for telephone or video conferencing. (More details on what this looks like for teaching staff can be found in Section 2 below.) For staff whose positions do not allow them to work remotely, the expectation is that you will be “on call”, and available if necessary to participate in remote activities/training if asked. Consistent with these expectations, in the next few days, I will be asking the School Committee to approve a plan that will allow us to ensure that all employees’ base salaries (whether annual or hourly) will remain whole during this period of forced closure. I spoke with the presidents of both BFT and AFSCME earlier today to share this with them, but please know that this also will apply, if approved, to non-union personnel. This will include long-term substitutes, IT staff, crossing guards, noontime aides, etc. 2. Educational Opportunities for Students This morning, I was on a conference call with DESE Commissioner Riley, who provided guidance to districts about what could be provided as educational opportunities for students during this period of closure. He was quite clear that districts should not be trying to replicate school remotely - particularly because there are significant issues with student equity due to access. As such, our focus as a district will be on providing opportunities for enrichment and to prevent regression. I know that many of you have been already working on what you can provide to your students, so I want to outline the basic approach that we are going to take in rolling this out: a. This evening, I will be sending a message to parents explaining this approach in general terms, and providing some general resources that are available and vetted. In that letter, I will also indicate that as a district we will be providing more specific resources by grade level/course by the end of this week/beginning of next week. b. Staff will work, led by coordinators, over the coming days to identify a common baseline set of educational experiences for students in a given grade level/course that will focus on previously taught content to provide students the chance to practice and strengthen what they have learned. c. Once that common baseline is shared, individual teachers can provide students with additional activities/information related to their specific classroom. Based upon DESE guidance, we will highly encourage students to do the work that we provide, but we cannot require it - similarly, we will not be using this work to grade students. (As an aside, report cards are the least of our worries right now - and Trimester 2 report cards will not be coming out on schedule later this month.) For related service providers, we will be encouraging you to reach out to those students using email, or where appropriate through phone/video to support those students that we can remotely. I would just ask that - if using technology other than email - you take steps to preserve your privacy by not using your personal cell phones unless you block your phone number (*67). There will be more details in the coming days - including how this organization of work will occur - but I thought it important to provide a general plan to everyone. Please continue to check your email for more information. Thank you, Tim -- Tim Piwowar Superintendent Billerica Public Schools (978)528-7900 tpiwowar@billericak12.com