Date: November 24, 2020
To: Parents, Guardians, Students, and DPS #170 Staff
From: Margo Empen - Superintendent
RE: Emergency Weather-Snow Days/20-21 School Year
_____________________________________________________________________________________
At the November 18, 2020 Board of Education meeting, administration discussed how to handle emergency weather or “snow days.” Our District’s plan, should we have the need to take an emergency weather or “snow day,” is to utilize a Remote Learning Day. Instead of calling off school, or taking an emergency day, if at all possible, we will transition to a Remote Learning Day. Our hope is we will remain in school with little interruption throughout the duration of the fall and winter months, but we understand that may not be a possibility. This means on the days prior to any impending potential severe weather, we will be sending home additional work packets with our elementary students “just in case.” We will take this additional precaution to ensure students have learning materials if we have an emergency weather/snow day. We will also be utilizing Seesaw for lessons, but want to ensure there is no disruption to learning. Students in grades 6-12 will access Canvas for their lessons on emergency weather/snow days.
The one exception to us not implementing a Remote Learning Day would be if we were somehow caught off guard with a severe-weather event that wasn’t predicted ahead of time, and we were unable to provide our kids with the appropriate learning resources or families lacked power to utilize our technology platforms of Seesaw and Canvas. Should something like this occur, we would take a regular “snow day” and we would make that day up in June. Otherwise, Remote Learning Days are counted as school days and do not have to be made up.
I will continue to notify families of the Emergency Weather Day by an automated call, text message, and notice on our website and social media pages so families know the learning plan for that day.
If you have any questions, please reach out to building or district administration.