This summer we contracted with LJB to gather professional health and safety expertise, work through decision-making to manage and mitigate risk, and develop a comprehensive safety plan. This plan was constructed with the goal of maintaining staff and student safety, while avoiding going fully remote.

With their guidance and ongoing counsel, Loveland City School District was able to create and maintain a healthy and safe environment for teachers, staff and students, identify any potential health and safety hazards and make appropriate purchasing decisions for materials and supplies.

Our work with LJB helped us reduce costs by more efficiently scheduling our existing staff which eliminated the need to hire additional cleaning staff. We increased face-to-face time during our hybrid plan by eliminating the full remote day during hybrid for cleaning. Our proactive health and safety measures were the primary reason we avoided many financial and resource strains when we began experiencing positive COVID cases and concerns. The benefits of this work are evident each day, and will continue serving us in the months ahead.

Our goal has been to return to 5 day, in-person learning, but only if it did not present unacceptable risk levels. So far, we have moved to bring our youngest students back to 5 day, in-person learning and are currently waiting on bringing back our high school students, because of concerns around an increasing and on-going spread that is taking place outside of school involving our high school students.

Through October 23, we have had 18 students or staff test positive for COVID-19, and that has resulted in 50 close-contact quarantines. All indications are that people are contracting COVID outside of our schools, and that because of our masking, distancing and hygiene bundle, it is not being spread inside our schools.

Now that we have made it through the first quarter, we can see that our students are learning and performing well. Our MAP fall benchmark scores for grades 1-8 consistently show that students this fall are on par with where students were last fall. The education of our students is going strong. Students are actively participating in their areas of specialty in interest beyond the classroom, with students active in fall sports, music and performing. Clubs have started and continue to work on creative ways to provide the full Tiger experience for our students and families.

This month’s Compassion Project at Loveland Elementary is Socktober! Students and families are collecting new pairs of socks to donate to local homeless shelters. Socks are the most requested item in shelters. The Compassion Project fosters kindness and compassion within our school, classrooms and community through acts of kindness.

• You can buy socks to help the project here.
• Learn more about the Compassion Project Socktober effort here.

As we all continue through a challenging year, Superintendent Dr. Amy Crouse has kicked off a two-week effort to focus on the physical and emotional wellness of staff.

“I know our staff give their all for our Loveland Tiger Family, but this year more than ever we need to take time to focus on taking care of ourselves so we can provide the best for our students and our families,” Crouse said.

LHS science teacher Kristin Scherman is participating in the state-wide Step It Up Wellness Challenge put together by the Health Action Council and the OHSAA, for a chance to win up to $3,000 for the district.

We are also sharing some of the different ways staff relax, stay healthy and get re-energized on our district Facebook and Twitter pages.