Elmbrook Staff, Students and Families,

Thank you for your continued support and grace during this difficult time. As we work to stabilize our education system and sustain all teaching and learning options for our families, staff, and students over the long-term, we have an important announcement regarding a calendar adjustment post-Thanksgiving. 

Last evening the District's Governance Team (Board President & Vice President, and Superintendent) endorsed the Medical Advisory Board's recommendation to change November 30 - December 4 from in-person learning to virtual learning for all students and staff.  This action was endorsed by the full Board of Education (7-0 vote) at an earlier meeting, and extends temporary virtual learning from Monday, November 23 - Friday, December 4.

This short-term recommendation was made by the Advisory Board based on the continued analysis of student and staff member disease data, and reflects significant concern about rapidly increasing community spread. In the seven days after Halloween, we experienced 53 student and staff positive Covid cases and 403 quarantines, while active cases in Waukesha County have doubled in just one week to 6,800. The intended outcome of temporary virtual learning is to have the disease symptoms appear in the days following Thanksgiving weekend while we are virtual, thus limiting exposure and mitigating spread in our school communities. 

For the week of November 30, students and families can expect class schedules and activities similar to those being deployed next Monday and Tuesday (November 23-24), which are also virtual learning days for all students. High School athletics and activities will continue as planned, as we have experienced very few transmissions of the disease on our sports teams to date.

While we hope this temporary virtual strategy will slow the spread of the disease in our school communities, we recognize that Covid infections will not stop over the holiday weekend. Please continue to report any student Covid-positive or quarantine information to your health room, even during virtual learning days. As a reminder, any student or staff member who travels out of the country to a CDC-designated, Level 3 country, will need to quarantine for 14 days before returning to school/work. 

During temporary virtual learning, free meal pick-up is available to any student/family at each school for those who register in advance. Click here to sign up and select the school that is most convenient for your pick-up between 11:30 - 12:30 each school day.

I appreciate the passion in our community for education and your support this school year. These decisions, and their disruptive impact on students, staff and families, are not made lightly. We will continue to operate transparently and seek data-driven strategies that sustain in-person learning. There is no playbook for this work, and our ability to respond to current data and information, combined with your ongoing flexibility, is essential to providing a high quality learning environment for our students. Following our transition to temporary virtual learning November 23 - December 4, I look forward to resuming in-person learning on Monday, December 7.

Mark Hansen
Superintendent