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New Year's Update


Posted Date: 12/31/2020

New Year's Update

Pleasant Ridge Friends and Community,

I want to take a moment this afternoon to set the stage for our return to school on January 4, 2021. No, the break is not over for our students, but I want to allow for some planning on behalf of our families. Please see below several important messages to start our post-holiday school term smoothly.

  • Snow days are snow days. It is NOT our intent to hold school remotely on snow days. Those days will be handled as they have been in the past. If the decision is made to cancel school for inclement weather, that information will be disseminated through USD 449 Textcaster, via our Facebook page, the USD 449 website, and made available to local television news outlets on channels 4, 5, and 41.
  • As we return to school on January 4, 2021, students will still be working in quarter 2. Our first semester ends on January 15th and the second semester begins on January 19, 2021. This slight alteration to our year was caused by our later-than-normal start of the school year.
  • Activities, both practices, and competitions, will be allowed to resume for MS and HS students on January 4, 2021, in accordance with KSHSAA guidelines for Kansas schools. We will continue to allow parents to attend competitions as we have been and will also stream as many competitions as possible so that everyone can enjoy our students’ hard work!

Finally, I would like to remind our school community how much we need your help. It is a district priority to try and keep students attending in person. However, should the number of active COVID-19 cases and quarantines within our schools dictate a change, we will not hesitate to change learning models. PLEASE, if your student is not feeling well, keep them home. If someone in your home has a COVID test pending (due to not feeling well), keep your student/s home pending the results of that test. It is much more manageable for our students and staff to have a small number of students to catch up upon their return than for us to move to a remote learning model. Our experience has taught us that students learn better when they are at school and with their teachers. Please help us to minimize the effects of COVID-19 in our school community. We ALL want a little more normal, but the time has not yet come for us to loosen our procedures.

I am very proud of the work and dedication of our students, families, and staff over the past five months. Please join us as we move into 2021 and a fantastic year for our Pleasant Ridge schools!

Tim Beying

Superintendent