Alpine Union School District

Reminder, Grab and Go meals are not being distributed today. It will resume this Thursday at JMMS 11 - 12.

Update on COVID-19 Watchlist Dear AUSD Families, You may have heard the news that the County of San Diego was removed from the state’s COVID-19 watchlist and wonder what it means for Alpine Union. This is encouraging news that could help pave the way for us to reopening schools this fall. However, there are some important things to keep in mind. First, these numbers will need to stay within the acceptable range for at least 14 days before schools in San Diego County will be allowed to reopen without a waiver. Second, when we are allowed to return to face-to-face instruction, we hope to make the transition as seamless as possible for our students, staff, and families by beginning with our hybrid model as outlined in our AUSD Reopening Schools Plan and the AUSD Safe Schools Parent and Student Reopening Guidebook. While we keep a close eye on the watchlist, we are also planning on submitting a County of San Diego Elementary School Waiver next week so that we may begin to reopen our campuses. The process for reopening our schools remains the same as our plans have outlined. For the last several months, we have been developing and updating our reopening plans to do everything possible to ensure healthy environments for our students and staff. As you can imagine, the process for reopening is very complex. District leadership has also been working with our employee associations to develop memorandums of understanding that address working conditions in our schools before employees return to school sites. As a reminder, we have created two options to support our parents as Distance Learning begins: Extended Student Services and Alpine COVID-19 Learning Pods. Information on both options are available on our website on our COVID-19 webpage. I appreciate your flexibility, support, and understanding as we adjust to these ever-changing conditions. I will continue to share updates as they become available. You can also find the most current information on our reopening plans on our COVID-19 webpage. I very much look forward to seeing our students back on campus in the very near future. Stay well and healthy! Sincerely, Dr. Rich Newman Proudest Superintendent on Earth

Dear AUSD Families, I hope you and your family are staying safe and healthy. With the start of school on the horizon, I wanted to share some important updates regarding support for our families during Distance Learning. On March 13, the day in which we closed schools, we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing all of our efforts on being as responsive as possible to the needs of our students, families, staff, and the Alpine community. From providing wifi access at each of our school sites for anyone in the community, to providing 1000s of Grab and Go meals to any school-aged child, and providing social and emotional support to families and students, we have been relentless in our pursuit of trying to meet the needs of our community. As we launch the school year with Distance Learning we have created several programs to support our families. First, we realize that Distance Learning is not the optimal way for all students to learn. Second, we recognize that most parents’ work schedules are not compatible with providing full-time childcare, and many parents desire to have their child have some socialization with other children while managing health risks. Third, we also realize that parents want to have a safe place for their children to be if they can’t physically be in school learning face-to-face with a teacher. To support the needs of our families, we have been working to expand our Extended Student Service (ESS) child care program to accommodate students while following the required health guidelines and protocols. We have changed our ESS program to accommodate students from 7:30 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. to support our working families. Students in ESS will be able to participate in Distance Learning while being in a stable cohort of students following all required health guidelines. To ensure stable cohorts, children will need to enroll for the full week. We have made our ESS program one of the most affordable in the county. The cost will be $100 a week, which is $1.90 an hour. Due to the health guidelines, which limit the number of students in a cohort, spaces will be limited. However, we are working to hire more ESS staff to expand our program. More information can be found on our website or by contacting Lindsay Walker, ESS Coordinator, at lwalker@alpineschools.net. While we work to expand our ESS program as fast as possible, we have also designed the Alpine COVID-19 Learning Pod so parents can meet the childcare and learning needs of their children. An Alpine COVID-19 Learning Pod is a unique learning structure designed to offer a place on an AUSD campus for a stable pod or cohort of students to meet during the day with a parent supervising the students and an AUSD staff member supporting the learning of the children in the pod. All public health guidelines and protocols will be followed. In short, the focus is on creating a safe setting to complement distance learning instruction from schools, with supervision responsibility provided by a network of parents, and technical and instructional support provided by our District. As with our ESS program, a pod will consist of no more than 12 students. As a District, we feel it is important that there is equity and equal access to all educational opportunities. In order to support that effort, the District will allow families to apply to use District facilities at no cost as an Alpine COVID-19 Learning Pod. To do so, parents may submit a Facility Use application to utilize designated spaces on campus. Applications will be considered on a first-come, first-serve basis. The organization of the Learning Pods is strictly voluntary and parent-directed. If you have questions or are interested, please email Mrs. Ripke, principal of CELC, at tripke@alpineschools.net. We hope these options provide opportunities for our parents to return to work and for our students to excel with their Distance Learning. We remain committed to having our students return to campus for face-to-face learning when safe and possible. In the meantime, we are also pursuing the waiver process to allow us to begin to bring students back to campus for learning. Lastly, I want to thank our Board of Trustees for their devotion to our community and their constant focus on finding innovative and creative ways to support our students and the community of Alpine. Alpine truly is a special place, and our schools will remain focused on providing a world-class education with a hometown feel. Sincerely, Dr. Rich Newman Proudest Superintendent on Earth

Grab and Go Meals - Parents are now required to show their child's student ID number. For help please reach out to your school office.

Grab and Go Meal Distribution: Please note we have some changes to our Grab and Go food distribution. All distributions will be moved from Boulder Oaks Elementary to Joan MacQueen Middle School and will remain at 11:00 to 12:00pm. Please see the schedule below: Monday, August 17th - No Food Distribution Thursday, August 20th - Distributed at JMMS Every Monday after August 20th - Distributed at JMMS

AUSD is looking to hire friendly, enthusiastic, and passionate individuals to join our team. We are hiring custodians, child care workers and other positions. These and other positions can be found at Edjoin.org, search Alpine Union.

Shadow Hills Families - Please use this ZOOM link for tonight's Webinar outlining the upcoming 20-21 school year. The presentation will begin at 5:30 pm. If you are unable to attend, it will be recorded. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82642283644

Creekside families, please join us for a school reopening webinar for CELC tonight, August 6th at 6:30 pm. Here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89034748336

JMMS Families - Just a reminder that our Back to School Parent Meeting takes place tonight at 6:30. Here is the webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88662861072

BOES Families - Just a reminder that our Back to School Parent Meeting takes place tonight at 5:30. Here is the webinar link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82945467688 Hope you can make it!

Each school will be hosting a Reopening School webinar next week, Be on the lookout for the link to the webinar.

AUSD is looking to hire friendly, enthusiastic, and passionate individuals to join our team. We are hiring custodians, child care workers and other positions. These and other positions can be found at Edjoin.org, search Alpine Union.

We’re thrilled to announce Alpine Union School District’s new app! Access our Reopening plans, cafeteria menus, news updates, emergency notifications. Download the app from the Apple of Google Play store. Search for Alpine Union School District.

Dear AUSD Families, We realize that everyone is eager for answers as to what school routines will look like when the new school year begins. With this in mind, we have designed the AUSD Safe Schools Parent And Student Reopening Guidebook. It provides a road map for how our schools will operate in the 2020-21 school year. The guidebook along with all communications and updates are posted on our COVID-19 page on our website. The Guidebook, our Reopening Plan, and the list of Frequently Asked Questions and other resources are located on the page. Here is the link to the Guidebook. https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/819514/2020-21_AUSD_SCHOOL_REOPENING_GUIDEBOOK.pdf

AUSD 2020-21 Registration Extended Until Friday, July 31 We are extending the 2020-21 Student Learning Model Registration until Friday, July 31 at 4:00 PM. While we will be beginning the year with distance learning, we plan to transition to face-to-face learning when health conditions allow. It is imperative that each child is registered for the learning model of your choice by Friday, July 31 so that we are able to staff appropriately. If a registration form is not completed for each child we may not be able to place your child in the learning mode of your choice when we reopen our campuses. Please check our COVID-19 webpage for a list of frequently asked questions. This page is updated daily with all communications and key information. The 2020-21 Student Learning Model Registration registration form can be found at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PSV68FS

As a follow up to our Town Hall Meeting we have posted a Frequency Asked Questions page on our Covid-19 webpage. The link to the page is located at the top of each our webpages located at www.alpineschools.net

Please read our new parent update on Reopening Schools. All updates are posted on our Covid-19 page. https://www.alpineschools.net/o/ausd/page/coronavirus-updates--15

AUSD is hiring custodial and Extended Student Services staff for before and after school child care. We are looking for committed, motivated and friendly individuals to join our team. Please visit www.edjoin.org and search Alpine Union.

AUSD is hiring custodial and Extended Student Services staff for before and after school child care. We are looking for committed, motivated and friendly individuals to join our team. Please visit www.edjoin.org and search Alpine Union.

We realize that there are many questions about the reopening of our schools. We will be hosting an AUSD Town Hall meeting to share specifics of the plan. Please submit any questions you might have to returntoschools@alpineschools.net.