February 11, 2021
Dear Coos Bay Schools Parents and Community,
Well the weekly numbers have come in and the two week combination for Coos County (1/24-2/6/2021) has climbed to 284 cases per 100,000 residents. That is up from 248 last week and 202 just two weeks ago. The Oregon Department of Education guidelines state that if case trends are on the rise that we are to consider pausing implementation of our High School in-person instructional model. Our original target date to bring our High School kids back to in-person was Feb.16th. Due to the most recent data, we will postpone that date until at least February 22nd.
Next week we will once again look at the case numbers and make a decision on that date. As I have stated before, once we rolled out our plan with target dates we would essentially be on a week to week pattern for a decision to bring our High School students back to in-person. Also over the past two weeks we have had a few community cases impact our schools. We have had to quarantine a few classroom cohorts and bus cohorts. The good news is that, like all of the previous cases impacting our schools, we have been able to isolate the cases and control any spread between classrooms or around the schools. Due to the complexity of the High School schedule and the amount of students, this becomes more difficult when we bring them back to in-person classes. That is why we need the community cases to be on the decrease and we would like to see those cases much closer to 200 per 100,000 residents before we bring back our High School students.
I encourage you to keep up the fight against the virus and keep practicing good public health protocols. Please wear a mask, wash your hands, and social distance when at all possible. With the rollout of the vaccine and Pandemic fatigue, it is tempting to relax on these protocols. Please stay vigilant for the sake of our community.
Bryan Trendell
Coos Bay Public Schools
Superintendent