Henry Barnard PTO

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May 19, 2022

Hello Barnard Families,  

Please don’t forget to RSVP for next week’s Barnard/Crandall End of Year Celebration event. The official RSVP deadline to participate is tonight so if you'd like to come out and celebrate your child's achievements during this very different kind of school year, please sign up as quickly as possible. 

Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyAbiIIa0xolubVD0WK75lkPyhEw9GCdA4FOJgNGE9M/edit

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May 13, 2022

Hello Barnard Families,   

Please follow the link to view this week's edition of The Big Cat Courier and have a great weekend with the kids! https://www.smore.com/vg7s1

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May 4, 2022

https://www.enfieldschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=899659&pageId=980193&action=design  

Dear Parents, Staff, and Students of Henry Barnard School,  

As I informed you on Monday, Henry Barnard has experienced a rapid increase of COVID cases with staff members this week. At the present time, we currently have 40 of our 75 staff members out with COVID. Although we have tried to cover the building with staff members from other schools, we have reached a point where we simply cannot provide adequate adult supervision to safely open for in-person learning. After consultation with the North Central District Health Department, we have decided to cancel in-person classes at Henry Barnard School for Thursday, May 5 and Friday, May 6. These two school days will be treated like a traditional snow day. To be completely honest, I’m hopeful that Henry Barnard can re-open for in-person learning on Monday, May 9, but unfortunately, we won’t know that until this weekend when we have a better idea of which staff members are cleared to return. Because of that, I don’t want to lock in a last day of school for Henry Barnard in case we have an additional closure.   The closure affects all school programming, including before and after-school activities, all athletic and extracurricular practices and competitions, and all weekend events.   Please understand this is the last message I wanted to send to you because I realize the impact this has on families, as well as students. I want to again commend the Henry Barnard staff, as well as the dozens of district staff members who came together to keep Henry Barnard open the past three days. It was a Herculean effort to make it as far as we did, but the lack of available staff has left me with no other option but to close. We are closely monitoring this situation and working with the North Central District Health Department. We will provide you with updates as we know more. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Please Note: Meals for students will continue to be available for pickup at Enfield High School from 8:30 to 9:30 am. To order a meal for pickup, please call 860-253-6511.   

Thank you - and stay well,   

Christopher J. Drezek 

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May 2, 2022

To the Parents, Students and Staff of Henry Barnard School,      

Unfortunately, this morning we were hit with a wave of COVID positive staff members that now exceeds thirty people. I commend the staff of Henry Barnard along with district staff for pulling together to keep the building operating today. However, with this amount of staff unable to come to work, and more awaiting test results, we are now faced with a supervision issue as we may no longer have enough adults in the building to safely remain open. School staff has reminded everyone in the building to bring their iPads home in the event we are forced to go remote until this wave passes. At the present time, I am not closing Barnard for tomorrow, Tuesday May 3rd, as we are doing everything we can to find additional staffing to open for tomorrow. 

Although I’m hopeful, I’m not optimistic that we will find the resources to open safely. I wanted to give you as much notice as possible because I understand the hardship this will cause families, but with the amount of staff members testing positive, we are exhausting every option. A discussion on tomorrow will come later in the day after we determine if we can move staff from other buildings to cover, but I wanted to be aware this was a possibility.      

Thanks,      

Chris   

Christopher J. Drezek   

Superintendent of Schools