Canisteo-Greenwood Central School District

Practice times for Monday, Feb. 1st HS Gym 2:30-4:00 PM Modified Girls Basketball 4:00-5:30 PM Modified Boys Basketball 5:30-7:30 PM Varsity Wrestling Elementary Gym 1:15-3:15 PM Girls JV Basketball 3:15-4:45 PM Varsity Boys Basketball 4:45-5:45 PM JV Boys Basketball 5:45-7:45 PM Girls Varsity Basketball

Good afternoon, We found out today that we have 3 new positive COVID-19 cases at Canisteo-Greenwood. 1 is an elementary employee, and 2 are elementary students. All 3 individuals were already quarantined due to a positive contact/suspected contact. There is no need to do any contact tracing for any of these cases because the last time any of them were in the building was January 21st. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, The NYS Education Department is looking for community input regarding state testing this year. It will ask if you think we should have any state testing and whether or not you feel accountability requirements should be waived. Please click on the link below to provide your input if you choose to do so. https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=6BbvFeBMw0-S4mp6bI52XjnbFEdJun5JlAaAy3EjocNUN1ZKS0xUT0dVUElWSU9WREowM0YzNVBXMy4u

Good morning, As you may have heard last night, the county has given us the green light to begin high-risk sports starting February 1st; with athletes required to wear masks and no spectators. I wanted to address the two criteria so you, as a community, know the reasoning behind them. MASKING - this one was easy for us and a non-negotiable. We require to have our students masked throughout the school day and it is extremely hypocritical to say during sports "wear masks as tolerated". As I stated earlier this year, our job is to keep schools open safely and if we can provide more for our kids to participate in, I am all for it. But we must be smart about it. As we witnessed in the fall, our athletes wore masks and they were fine. Sure, they fell down once in awhile due to physical movement but the intent of the rule was always followed and our kids did a fantastic job. Unfortunately, there will be other leagues in the Section that are going to use the lose wording of "wear masks as tolerated" and not require masks for their athletes. I do not want to speculate to the reasons why they feel they cannot tell their athletes to wear a mask, but I struggle with the messaging of masking all day in school and then after 3 pm say "if you cannot tolerate it, that's ok. Just take it off". NO SPECTATORS - This one took a little while to talk through with the county. We understand that parents want to watch their children participate. Because fall sports were outside, it was a little bit easier to manage. With the winter sports being inside, everything changes. Now we have everyone in one space for more than an hour at a time. What that means is that if anyone tests positive in the gymnasium, ALL individuals would qualify for quarantine (athletes, coaches, officials, scorekeepers AND spectators). So what this boils down to is that our spectators would be at risk of a 10-day quarantine and/or exposure. How many of our parents want to be off work for 10 days? The other part of the logic is that if any one of the spectators tested positive, then everyone in the gymnasium would have to quarantine. By not having spectators, we lessen the risk of exposure for all involved. The season is going to be very short and we would not want to lose 2 weeks of competition due to a positive spectator, which is something we have control over. I know this is an unpopular decision, but weighing everything out it provides the best opportunity for our students to have a full season and protects the integrity of our safety plan to keep school open. Having the state allow high-risk sports is a big deal. I honestly did not think that it was going to happen and was hanging on to a sliver of hope for our kids. Every day that went by after January 4th (original start date for high-risk sports),the chances were dwindling. NY was one of only 4 states that was not allowing high-risk sports. It is a gift to our students to be able to participate and we must make sure that they remain safe and have a memorable experience. The county did allow some autonomy to do something for senior night. We will be working out a plan to honor our senior athletes and their parents. Details forthcoming. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out. I am always willing to have a conversation about any decisions that are made. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Yesterday morning we had an error in our attendance system notifying you that your student was absent. This error was caused by an update to our student management system over the weekend that contained a new attendance logic. The system inadvertently marked all students absent, triggering the calls. The district immediately sent out an all call to notify parents of this error and have learned that the all call did not reach all of our families (roughly half). We apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused and please know that we are working hard to remedy this as soon as possible. There are many moving pieces into having an automated system and yesterday, they failed. We know that receiving a phone call stating that your child was absent when you know you put them on the bus, dropped them off, or saw them walk out the door can be heart-wrenching and we sincerely apologize. We will learn from this experience and ask our companies that, after an update, they double check to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, This morning we learned of a positive elementary student. The administrative team has completed the contact tracing and all affected families and employees have been contacted. The classroom (21) and the teachers (2) will be in quarantine, along with a bus driver. We continue to encourage our families to prescreen their students before sending them to school. The symptoms remain minor for students, and any minor symptom cannot be ignored. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, We received a call from the county health department letting us know that we have a positive high school student. The administrative team has completed their contact tracing, and the affected families have been contacted. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, We found out last evening that one of our HS students has tested positive for COVID-19. The individual was last in school on Thursday, January 14th. The contact tracing is complete and the impacted students and employees for quarantine have been called. We are coming to the tail-end of possible cases from exposure during the Christmas Break, so we are hoping that the numbers will begin to decrease. As always, remain vigilant in your efforts to keep the spread down. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, Over the past 24 hours we have received word of 3 more positive students. Due to 1 being in quarantine already due to a positive family member, and the other 2 being in the building a very short amount of time, only 8 individuals will need to be quarantined from these 3 cases. All affected families and employees have been notified. As we continue to forge ahead during these times, I cannot stress enough that we need to remain vigilant in our precautionary measures of masking, distancing, hand washing, disinfecting, and pre-screening our children before sending them to school. I know the numbers in the county are high, but here is some data that the community may be interested in to show that school is a safe place for our students and staff to be in: - CG has had 32 positive cases to date (2.7% of our student and staff population). - 24 of the 32 cases are confirmed to have been in contact with a positive individual outside of the school setting. - 8 of the 32 cases, the individuals do not know who they were in contact with. Hypothetically, if we were to tag these cases to school contacts (which there is no way to prove), our transmission rate would be 0.9% IF TRUE. -CG has had 0.65% of the total cases in the county since the pandemic started in March. As you can see, we are doing the right things to keep our students and staff safe. I cannot express how proud I am of everyone for doing what is necessary to keep our kids and staff safe and in school. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Dear Parents/Guardians, I come to you today asking a huge favor. It has come to our attention that there is a growing number of parents/guardians that are not wearing masks when they are on school grounds picking up their elementary children. As you know, we have done as much as we can to protect the integrity of our environment and keeping our children and staff safe. Keeping our children and staff safe is an integral part to having our schools open and continuing 4 days of in-person learning. From the beginning of the pandemic last March (graduation, sporting events, etc.), we have politely asked that all individuals be masked when on school property when there is no guarantee that a 6 ft. distance could be maintained. We are asking for the same thing to occur at our parent pick-up at the elementary school. If you are going to be on school grounds and congregating at the parent pick-up doors, we are asking that you remain masked. With as many parents that are in attendance for pick-up, there is no guarantee that you can remain socially-distanced. I want to thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Here is the link for tonight's BOE meeting scheduled for 6pm. https://zoom.us/j/99312078395

Good morning, Over the weekend we received word that 2 of our elementary students have tested positive for COVID-19. The administrative team conducted the contact tracing and all affected individuals to be quarantined were contacted. This brings our active cases to 4 since we returned from the Christmas break. We will continue to monitor our situation this week. If at any time we feel that there is possible transmission in the school setting, we will move to remote learning to curb the spread of the virus. I know that this can be difficult for our families but keeping our kids and staff safe is our number one priority. Having the students in the building is best for everyone but it must continue to be done safely. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good evening, We received word last this afternoon that one of our elementary students has tested positive for COVID-19. The student was last in the building Tuesday and the contact tracing has been completed. All of the affected families (15) and employees (3) have been notified. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

We were informed this afternoon that one of our elementary teachers has tested positive for COVID-19. This individual has not been in the District at all this week, so there is no need for contact tracing. Stay safe everyone. Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good morning, This is Tom Crook, Superintendent at Canisteo-Greenwood. I know just before the Christmas Break, we decided to slide to 100% remote learning due to the number of positive cases CG had, the large number of quarantines and the lack of substitutes to cover our employees that were out due to being positive and quarantined. It was the first time since September that we had reached the breaking point like many of the districts around us. Currently, we have 2 positive cases (employees) where the individuals are still in their own quarantine but will be out before we are scheduled to come back on January 4th. As I am writing this announcement, we have not heard from the county of any more positive cases that would affect CG. With that being said, we have made the decision to return to in-person learning on January 4th. This decision does come with some reservations. Our recent slide into 100% remote on December 16th was the direct impact of the Thanksgiving holiday. My worry is that it will happen again after Christmas and New Year's. If we get to the numbers we did in mid-December, we will have no choice but to slide into remote learning again and would for a period of 2 weeks. The numbers in Steuben County are the highest that they have been since March and the positive cases do not seem to be diminishing. And after the holidays, the county is projecting that the numbers will remain steady or increase, but not decrease. But as I stated at the Board of Education meeting on Monday, December 11th, I must look at CG’s numbers and base our decisions from those. If we do not hear from the county over the next few days, we will have no positive cases of any of our employees or students and for that reason, we will return to in-person learning. And if we do hear of any positive cases, those individuals will be quarantined and will return when their quarantine has expired but because of the break, we will not have large quarantine numbers that would affect our opening. When we return on January 4th and the weeks following, it will be crucial that our families pre-screen their students before school EVERY DAY. If your child is showing any symptom, as minor as it may seem, please keep them home and immediately seek an alternative diagnosis or negative COVID test. As you well know, we need to be prepared for anything and it can all change with a phone call, but as of today we are returning January 4th. PS – Happy New Year! Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon. We received a call today from the county health department informing us that we have a positive 8th grade student. The investigation date provided to us by the county is for Thursday, December 10th. We have completed our tracing and our team has made the calls to the affected families. If you have not been called, your child has not been affected by this case. I have to say that this has been a pretty tough week for CG and our families. At Monday’s Board of Education meeting during my COVID update, we had 1 active case and a total of 11 for the year. After today, we will have had added an additional 8 active cases, bringing our total for the year to 19. Although the decision was tough going 100% remote, it is proving to be the right decision, at the right time. We had a good run up to this point but it seems to have caught up with us. With our cases this week, their timing with the Thanksgiving Break is undeniable. I will be keeping a close eye on our cases and any incoming new ones. Even though we will be on break starting next Wednesday, the county is still going to contact us if we have any positive students or employees. If it looks anything like it does today, it may be best for us to stay remote for a period of time after break to stop this cycle. I will let our CG data tell us whether or not we will need to do that, along with a conversation with the county health department. IF we do, I will let the families know well in advance so you can make the necessary arrangements. My goal from the beginning has been to have our students in-person, but I have to keep our families and staff safe too. It would not be an easy decision because I know the hardships that it will cause many of our families. As always, I will keep the community posted on all COVID-related developments. Stay safe and healthy, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good afternoon, this is Tom Crook, Superintendent of Canisteo-Greenwood. We were informed late this morning that we have a positive 9th grade student. The county has asked us to investigate for Monday, December 14th. We have completed our contact tracing and our administrative team has started contacting the individuals affected by the case. If you do not receive a call today directly from an administrator, your child did not qualify to be quarantined. If your does child qualify for quarantine, they can still attend their sessions virtually. Stay safe and healthy everyone. Yours in service. Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good morning. Late yesterday afternoon we received word that one of our elementary teachers has tested positive for COVID-19. This individual became symptomatic last Sunday and has not been in the building all week awaiting test results. Our contact tracing goes back to Friday, December 11th and has been completed. For precaution, the district had already asked the individuals that we felt would be quarantined to stay home while the symptomatic teacher awaited the test results. Stay safe and healthy everyone. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent

Good morning all. Since we were already scheduled for a 100% remote day today and I asked the teachers to work from home, we will have our remote day as scheduled. It does not make sense for us to use a snow day when we already had everyone scheduled to be at home anyway. Let's save our days for when we are in-person and you get that true "snow day" call. I know this is somewhat "Grinchish" but I will make it up to you, I promise. Your Grinch Superintendent, Thomas J. Crook

Following our COVID plan and protocol, I am writing to you today to let you know of another positive case that was reported to us last night. It was reported that we have a positive high school teacher. Due to the timeframe of their symptoms and the last time they were in the building, there was no need for contact tracing. Stay safe everyone. Yours in service, Thomas J. Crook Superintendent