Coronavirus: Field Trip Cancellations Addressed In Southington

SOUTHINGTON, CT — Southington Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connellan on Tuesday sent a letter to parents, caregivers and school staff members regarding the potential effect of the Coronavirus scare on the local education system.

Here is the text of the letter:

March 10, 2020
Dear SPS Families and Staff,

I am writing today to provide an update on the latest information and planning in which the district has been engaged to address the issues related to COVID-19. As you all know, information regarding COVID-19 is flying fast and furious.

I participated in a phone conference with the Governor’s Emergency Operations Center last evening. Some of the recommendations were not completely clear in the media reports today. The Emergency Operations Center team indicated that the advice they have received from other states and communities regarding prevention and mitigation efforts is that those states and communities now wish that they “had done more and done it sooner.”

Since a state of emergency has not yet been declared, the Governor and his team can only issue recommendations to local communities although clearly directives have been issued to state employees regarding travel restrictions and postponement or cancellation of large group
meetings. It was clear from the conference call that the State Department of Public Health and local Health Departments are the lead agencies and that it is incumbent upon all communities to work closely with both agencies.

The Emergency Operations Center’s recommendations to schools include the postponement or cancellation of activities that involve large groups of one hundred or more individuals, the use of all the preventive health measures identified by the CDC, Department of Public Health and local Health Departments and preparations for possible school closings.

In Southington, we have been engaged in planning for the past three weeks and have been proactive. Our Operations Department issued directives for additional deep cleaning in schools several weeks ago and that has continued. In addition, Operations reached out to New Britain Transportation Company at about the same time resulting in the implementation of a
deep cleaning procedure on all buses implemented by NBT. The Operations Director reached out to our vendors to ensure that the appropriate EPA approved products for sanitizing and disinfecting have been provided.

Mr. Madancy and I have met with all our building administrators and central office administrators over the past two weeks. Mr. Madancy met extensively with general education and special education coordinators and with the teacher’s union leadership. Today. building administrators will meet with their staff during a regularly scheduled two-hour s,aff meeting.

The focus in this type of meeting is typically on professional learning. However, we shifted the focus of today’s meetings and additional meetings scheduled for next week to a focus on planning for maintenance of learning should school closings become a reality. At this point, it is my understanding from State officials that school closings are likely to occur. We do
not know when those closings might happen. Our coordinators have completed an extensive amount of preparation to provide our teams of teachers with the information they will need to engage in this planning process.

We are using time already built into our schedules. Other districts around us are using impromptu or “emergency” early dismissals to accomplish what we will be doing during our regularly scheduled staff meeting time.

We are fortunate to have that time built into the schedule and we are pleased at the collaboration with the teachers' union to allow movement and reallocation of time to achieve a very important objective. Additional information regarding this issue will be sent directly to families.

In addition to the planning noted above, we are addressing the very real issues of multiple student activities at this time of year. It is now the recommendation that we cancel all field trips. This is truly unfortunate, but apparently a necessary step to ensure the safety of our students. We will be announcing the cancellation of field trips, effective today, and our administrators will begin working with staff, vendors and venues on this issue.

I will be participating in a conference call with our local health district this afternoon at 3:00 p.m and I will keep you apprised of any new information that emerges.

Respectfully,

Timothy F. Connellan

Superintendent