Monday December 7, 2020 at 1:15pm to All Good Afternoon Union City Families, I am reaching out today with some very important information. Please listen to the following information carefully. This message is also being emailed to all families. This morning we were notified of one positive and one probable case that impacts the high school and two probable cases that impact the elementary. Our administration team and nurses have already started their contact tracing, and if your student had close contact with these individuals you will receive notification from them as well as directions on quarantining. The department of health will not be reaching out at this time as they are experiencing a high volume of calls. If UCASD gets notice of 2 more cases of probable or positives at the elementary or 4 more at the secondary, we will need to immediately shift to online instruction for the specific building impacted for 3-7 days per state guidelines. This is not the case now, but we want to ensure everyone is aware of this information. This information is in our health and safety plan on page 28. If that were to happen I would immediately put out a global to update families. Again this is not the case at the present time. At this time we are giving all families notice that we plan to transition to online learning beginning Monday, December 14th and continue virtually through December 21st. These are the 6 school days before the holiday break. The format is the same as before. Students must attend class online, attendance is mandatory, and grades do count. We are planning to continue in person instruction this week, but that will again depend on the probable and positive numbers. Parents do have the options of calling into their main offices to go virtual as soon as they wish. In other words it is your choice whether to begin virtual learning sooner, even as soon as tomorrow, or wait until Monday December 14th. Starting December 14th the Internet Cafe will once again be available as long as the buildings do not have to shut down due to COVID numbers. If you wish for your student to be transported to school for connectivity reasons or special needs circumstances, please contact your building principal ASAP or by Thursday at the latest. This will give us an opportunity to plan our bus routes as well as our learning environments. We will reassess where things stand after the Christmas holiday and communicate to parents in advance of our plans. Our goal would be to be back in person on January 4th, but we will know better where we stand in a few weeks. Extra curriculars will be allowed to continue at this time, but with more stringent guidelines, including smaller numbers at practices. Wrestling is paused at this time as we sort through the quarantines and ensure there is a safe and healthy atmosphere for our student-athletes to return. I want to thank the entire school community for everyone’s continued flexibility and understanding during these most trying times. Please contact your building principal with any questions or concerns and have a great day! Thank you and stay well! -- Matthew W. Bennett Superintendent Union City Area School District