In the past week Governor Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced that districts would likely remain closed for the entire school year.  Additionally, the LA County superintendent Debra Duardo recommended that school districts close their campuses for the remainder of the school year.  

While we would like nothing more than to have our students back on our campuses, if even for a few weeks in late May or June, this appears unlikely. As such, PVPUSD campuses will remain closed until further notice. 

Please understand that if there is an opportunity for us to reopen our campuses before the end the school year, we will do everything in our power to make this happen.  Of course, we’d need support and guidance from the same governmental agencies that are currently advising us to remain closed.

This situation is very unfortunate for all of our students, especially our graduating seniors and those kids who have been looking forward to the end of the year activities. Our staff will be  developing options with input from principals, teachers, and students in the likely event that end of the year celebrations, including graduations, are interrupted.

Both Governor Newsom and State Superintendent Thurmond emphasized that while schools are closed, classes still remain open.  The likelihood that campuses will remain closed for the school year further emphasizes the importance of our distance learning program.  Given the challenge for parents of managing school and work at home, our collective academic online effort will involve our teachers, aides, counselors, therapists, administrators, and other employees as we seek to achieve the following: 

• Meaningful content for students.
• Personal engagement between educators and students. 
• Responsiveness to parent and student questions.
• Monitoring of student progress.
  

Grading is another important topic that we will be sending you information on very soon. Recently the California Department of Education released guidance on grades.  We will be working with our teacher leaders, department chairs, and site administration to develop grading policies that best support our students.  We will rely greatly on our teachers’ expertise in this area as we craft grading metrics that are in alignment with the guidance from the CDE. 

We thank you for supporting our district and for supporting your children’s education during this difficult time.