- Wayne Valley High School
- Wayne Valley
Letter from the Superintendent - August 14, 2020
8/14/2020
Dear Members of the WTPS Community,
Last March, the District started to consider how we might be able to return our students and staff to school safely. As we planned, we identified and found solutions to many problems, and last Friday, we submitted our plan to the New Jersey Department of Education for an in-person start of the school year using a hybrid instructional model. While we are still confident that our plan places us in the best possible position to open safely, there was a major shift in Trenton, and a new executive order must be considered.
On August 13th, Governor Murphy issued Executive Order #175, which allows New Jersey schools to provide full-time remote instruction to all students. This is a complete departure from the prior directive requiring some in-person instruction, which was the basis for the Wayne Township Public Schools Return to School Plan. In addition, the District received a new checklist with a set of new standards and recommendations to review and consider.
It is clear that in New Jersey, we are in a much better position than other states to reopen our schools because our transmission rates remain low. In Wayne, our Office of Emergency Management notified us that “In the last 18 days, Wayne has received 42 new positive (COVID-19) cases. That’s an average of 2.3 cases per day in a town of 55,000 plus people or, .0042% of our town’s population per day.”
We clearly have a complex challenge on our hands and there is much at stake. We will provide the community with an update next week.
Click here to download the full letter.
Sincerely,
Mark Toback, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Wayne Township Public Schools