Friday, March 12, 2021
Dear RSU 71 Students, Families, Staff, School Board, and Community Members,
I hope that you've had a good week. It sure has been good to see the sun and enjoy warmer days!
Good News
I want to start this week with a couple of happy videos about students in RSU 71, the first a story that was done by WABI and aired on the nightly news about a first-grader at Gladys Weymouth Elementary School.
https://www.wabi.tv/video/2021/03/11/year-old-belfast-boy-honored-making-life-saving-call/
The second video is of the RSU 71 Students Shine Show featuring Mrs. Nancy Brown's second-grade art students at the Captain Albert Stevens School. The next show will feature Belfast Area High School's Mr. David Thomas and his science students. https://youtu.be/5cCOYu-S_uo
COVID-19 Update
According to today's update from the state, we are still in GREEN -- the whole state of Maine is. On Wednesday, we had two positive cases of the coronavirus confirmed in individuals associated with East Belfast Elementary and one at Troy Howard Middle School. East Belfast Elementary moved to the Red/Remote Learning Mode, with staff and students working together from home (some teachers will be teaching from their classrooms) through March 19, returning to in-person instruction on March 22. The seventh grade has also needed to move to the Red/Remote Mode, with staff and students returning on March 19th. I shared this information in a mid-week update on the day we learned the news. The new case rate in Maine Schools is 22 people per 10,000, 35% lower than the statewide total of 34 new cases per 10,000 people.
Almost all the district staff who want the vaccine are in the state's system, with 88% of staff at the high school, for example, registered. My husband and I will be vaccinated on St. Patrick's Day. In the words of Nurse Wesson at BAHS, "This week has been an amazing ride, as vaccine availability pops up here and there."
That's it for this week. As always, please feel free to be in touch with our nurses, administrators, and me. Students and staff have been fabulous about wearing masks and maintaining social distance. Though we can see the light at the end of this pandemic tunnel, it is too soon to relax the state safety requirements, as attested to by this week's positive cases. It would be a terrible shame to come this far together and yet experience serious illness or even a death in a member of our community. Unfortunately, it is still a possibility and will continue to be until we reach herd immunity. So far, all positive cases in RSU 71 have recovered from the disease.
Warm wishes for a safe and happy weekend and week ahead. The next update will be sent on Friday, March 19, unless we have one or more positive coronavirus cases before then.
Sincerely, Mary Alice
