Norwich There’s no snow in the forecast, but Norwich schools Superintendent Kristen Stringfellow wants staff and parents to think about how they would like the school district to treat the next big storm.
The move to remote access learning during the COVID-19 pandemic also allows school districts to change their reaction to snow and ice storms by eliminating or reducing the number of traditional snow days in favor of fully remote learning days. One advantage to eliminating snow days would be an earlier summer vacation with no days tacked on in June.
Norwich has had only one traditional snow day thus far this winter, and Stringfellow said that storm might not have been suitable for a remote learning day, as strong winds were predicted that could have caused widespread power outages.
Norwich The Board of Education on Tuesday is slated to vote on a proposal to change the Monday, Oct. 11, holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous People Day.
Board of Education Chairwoman Heather Romanski said members of the public had requested that the board make the change in fall, and “more than one” board member brought the proposal forward.
“We felt it was brought to us by the community, and we had already planned to make the change when we talked about the calendar,” Romanski said.
The board is scheduled to vote on the 2021-22 school calendar, which included the change, during the board s 5:30 p.m. meeting. The meeting will be aired live on Facebook Live. Anyone wishing to comment at the start of the meeting should email arutigliano@norwichpublicschools.org or call (860) 823-4245 before 4 p.m. or can comment live on Facebook.
Norwich public schools will remain in hybrid model next week, while Norwich Free Academy remains in remote learning amid a post-holiday spike in COVID-19 rates in Norwich and some surrounding towns.
Both the Uncas Health District and Ledge Light Health District reported that the highest COVID-19 rates for their towns since March occurred at the end of December.
During the two-week period from Dec. 20 to Jan. 1, Norwich had a COVID-19 case rate of 82.3 cases per 100,000 population and a positivity rate of 11.5%, according to figures released by the Uncas Health District. The city’s COVID-19 positivity rate had been 10% for the previous two-week period.