Greetings NEA-Jurupa Family,
I hope that you all had a wonderful Spring Break and were able to find much needed time for yourselves. Hopefully, the last couple of days have afforded you the time needed to ready yourselves (a least a little) for the return to in-person instruction tomorrow. Thank you again for your continued compassion, empathy, grace, kindness, patience, and understanding!
The past year has been quite a roller coaster and here we are (humor has helped a lot this year and the memes have been spectacular!!)…
I wanted to provide some clarification on some of the questions that have been brought to my attention over the last few days. For your reference, this week is considered “Week 0”. Weeks 1-2 are April 5th-16th (each cohort meets once a week), and Week 3 begins April 19th (each cohort meets twice a week through the remainder of the school year). Additionally, attached above are some great “COVID protocol” signs (especially for our elementary aged students) that were shared with me (thank you Angela Vela!), in case you’re interested.
- What is the deadline for adding students to a cohort? The district deadline for parent survey response was March 19th. However, that was not the deadline to opt-in for in-person instruction. Many families are still responding and there is a chance that students could be added to existing cohorts. Section 1.c. of our MOU states that “notifications of changes made to the affected teachers at least 24 hours in advance, as practicable”
- Can we combine cohorts? At this point, the district is not going to combine blue/orange cohorts. However, they will be looking at the attendance and numbers, and will continue to monitor this before making any decisions one way or another.
- Is there a requirement to be on campus even if you have no cohort on a given day? You are only required to be in-person when you have in-person sessions. (Section 6.a. of MOU states: “Unit Members shall work on site during in-person instructional sessions. Unit Members may continue to work remotely during virtual instructional sessions”)
- When will we get our plexiglass barriers? The barriers are trickling in, many of you may have received yours already.
- What are the mask requirements/can we allow students to take off their masks?: Section 5.c. of the MOU: “All Unit Members, students, and other employees on campus will wear face coverings or face shields (with a qualifying medical exemption) while on campus in the presence of others or in any shared or public space whether or not others are present. The face covering shall cover the nose and mouth in accordance with guidelines.”
There will be slight differences at each site and even among staff at the same site, there always are. Please work with your site administrator(s) and site rep(s) as much as possible. A lot of this is still a work in progress and everyone is learning as they go, but please know that the Association and District are committed to problem solving and troubleshooting each step of the way. We have and will continue to communicate on an daily basis. I expect that there will be additional questions and concerns as we embark on this “new” journey and I will try to get clarifications as quickly as possible.
It seems surreal that we haven’t had students on campus in over a year. I’m starting to have those beginning of the school year dreams…
Wishing you all good luck and great day back tomorrow! It’s always exciting to meet/see your students and probably even more so now 😊
In honor of Cesar Chavez Day, I’ll leave you with this…
Thank you for all that you do! Best to you and your loved ones and please continue to stay safe and well!
In Unity-
Wendy Eccles 🙂
NEA-Jurupa President
Office Phone: 951-681-7997, Google Voice: 951-643-4076
Non-district email: president@neaj.org
Website: www.neaj.org
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