ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR NOVEMBER 11, 2020

John and Jonathan in the Mornings

The Script

Good morning ENSS, and welcome back to John and Jonathan in the mornings. Before we continue, we would like to recognize that ENSS is located on the traditional territory of the Mississauga-Anishinaabe First Nations. Miigwech.

This morning we will not be playing O Canada until our observance of remembrance day at 10:45 today. *read off the day plan laid out by administration*

For today as well, we thought it would be good to have a suitable adjective for today. Today is a good day to be Well-Disposed, another compound word. This word means to be friendly and sympathetic towards others, and to have the right attitude. So today let’s make sure that our attitudes are reflective and thankful for the military service and sacrifice of so many, for the cause of freedom and peace.

This Friday coming up we are having our one and only Formal day! A day to put on some clothes that we might not have been able to put on for a while because of Covid 19! So let’s go rummaging through those closets and find something a bit more fancy to finish off our period 1 classes!

*Wellness group announcement*

Did you know that if you haven’t been able to set up your own terry fox donations page, you can always send donations the way of a friend or the school itself. You can find our school link for donations on the Edsby by checking out one of our Terry Fox posts, as well as some classes will even have their own fundraising pages!

T-What? T-Fox!

Alright ENSS, this has been John and Jonathan in the mornings reporting your announcements for today. It is always a pleasure, and remember, you are doing great even if you can’t feel it, you are strong, you are worthy, and you are beautiful. Have a well-disposed Wednesday ENSS, and we’ll be back tomorrow morning!

Remembrance Day Words

*indigenous military service email*

Despite the different format of this year’s Remembrance Day, it doesn’t diminish our gratitude or the inspiration we draw from the example of these heroes, who answered the call to serve. Let us not take for granted the sacrifices made by those who laid down their lives for us. Now please stand at attention in respect for the playing of the last post.

November 25, 2020

Dear ENSS Students, Staff and Families,

As a follow-up to our message yesterday about the possible case of COVID-19 being investigated at our school, we need to let you know that the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit has confirmed this as a positive COVID-19 case.
The person will remain at home until the health unit advises they may return to school. The identity of the individual is protected by privacy legislation and will not be shared.
Through the HKPR Health Unit’s investigation, it was determined that since students and staff were wearing the appropriate PPE, there is a low risk of school exposure. This means that no students and staff need to isolate or go for testing, and everyone can continue to attend school and work as usual. As always, everyone should continue to perform daily self-assessments and self-monitor for symptoms.
To protect yourselves, your children and the community, the health unit recommends that you stay home if you are sick; complete daily self-screening; continue to physically distance from others as much as possible; wear a mask when indoors, on a bus, or when you cannot maintain a two metre distance outside; clean hands often with soap and water or hand sanitizer; cough and sneeze into your sleeve; avoid touching your face; avoiding sharing personal items with others; and avoid close contact with anyone who is ill. For more information regarding COVID-19, please visit https://www.hkpr.on.ca/covid-19/ .
We continue to follow all the recommendations of the provincial government and our local public health agencies. If you would like further information on the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board’s COVID-19 protocols, please visit http://kprschools.ca/en/COVID-19.html
We will continue to let families know of any further developments. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Karin Mackenzie-Russell

Principal

November 26 2020

Inclement Weather School Closures

The KPR Board has made an important change to how we handle inclement weather days (snow days) this winter. We wish to let all families know that schools will be closed on inclement weather days this year, to protect student health.

We know school closures are an inconvenience and hardship for parents and families. Ultimately, however, we must ensure student well-being at all times. To meet public health requirements and maintain student health, we are not able to combine groups or “cohorts” of students who attend school when buses are cancelled. We also cannot ensure that our schools would have enough staff on-site during snow days to safely supervise the much smaller groups of students in their existing cohorts. 

Therefore, if all buses are cancelled to a school, a region of schools or all schools board-wide, those schools will be closed for the day.

More specifically:

• when ALL buses are cancelled across the entire board, ALL schools will be closed for the day
• when ALL buses are cancelled within a specific geographic region of the board, such as the Municipality of Clarington, Northumberland County or Peterborough County, schools in that region only will be closed for the day
• and, finally, if ALL buses are cancelled for a specific school or group of schools, only that school or group of schools will be closed for the day.

When only a few buses are cancelled, or buses are delayed, schools will remain open.

Schools will provide learning for students to work at home on these days in a variety of ways, either through previously assigned or new work through the classroom teachers’ regular communication platforms, based on the age and grade of the students. Virtual elementary and secondary school programming on snow days will continue as normal.

We will inform families of school closures on snow days in several ways, including local news media, on www.kprschools.ca, through our social media channels (@kprschools on Twitter and Facebook), and by email or text from SchoolMessenger.

Please ensure that your school has up-to-date contact information for you, so that we can text or email you directly about what is happening at your child’s or teen’s school. You can sign up for our direct text service by sending a text message to 978338 with the message of “Y” or “Yes”.

For further information, please see the letter emailed to all families November 25 from Director of Education Jennifer Leclerc, or visit www.kprschools.ca

Judy Malfara

School Liaison and Communications Lead

Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board

December 1, 2020

Dear East Northumberland Secondary School students, staff and families,

We are providing this update to share that we have a second confirmed case of COVID-19 at East Northumberland Secondary School. That individual will remain at home until the Health Unit advises they may return to school. The identity of the individual is protected by privacy legislation and cannot be shared. 

As a result of the investigation by the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge (HKPR) District Health Unit, the HKPR District Health Unit has declared an outbreak at ENSS. The term ‘outbreak’ is used provincially by public health units when they believe there is evidence that at least one person could have reasonably acquired their infection within the school. 

We appreciate that this news may be concerning for our students, staff and parents. We want to assure you that we continue to work closely with the HKPR Health Unit to respond to this issue, and we continue to follow all public health and provincial guidelines to protect student and staff safety.

In terms of our school operations, we are sharing the following information:

• Our school remains OPEN.
• A small number of students are being dismissed at this time. HKPR believes they have identified and contacted all close contacts related to the confirmed cases at our school and continue to have daily follow-up.
• HKPR will be providing us with some short-term directions regarding further limiting student and staff contacts and limiting visitors.
• Signs will be posted on school doors identifying the current outbreak status.
• We continue to implement our enhanced daily pandemic cleaning protocols, and regular disinfection of our school with the electro-static sprayer.

At this time, the HKPR District Health Unit would like to remind members of the ENSS school community (and all members of our community) to limit contact with others and remain only in close contact with household members.

All students and staff are asked to continue to self-monitor for signs and symptoms of COVID-19; this includes completing the daily self-assessment for symptoms which is available at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/school-screening/ 

If you or your child develop one or more of these symptoms, please immediately self-isolate at home, and seek testing. Please keep your child or yourself at home even if symptoms seem mild, like a common cold. As always, please remember to inform us if your child will be absent from school.

To protect yourselves, your children and the community, the HKPR District Health Unit recommends that you physically distance from others as much as possible; stay home when sick; wear a mask when indoors, on a bus, or whenever you cannot maintain a two metre distance; clean hands often with soap and water or hand sanitizer; cough and sneeze into your sleeve; avoid touching your face; avoiding sharing personal items with others; and avoid close contact with anyone who is ill.

We continue to follow all public health recommendations to help protect student and staff safety and we will let families know of any further developments.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Karin Mackenzie-Russell

Principal

December 16, 2020

Dear East Northumberland Secondary School Families,

I am pleased to share with you that we have been informed by the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit (HKPR), that the COVID-19 outbreak declared on December 1 is officially over.

HKPR has confirmed that at least 14 days have passed with no evidence of ongoing transmission that could reasonably be related to exposures in the school, and all pending test results have been received. 

We wanted to take a moment and extend our sincere appreciation to our students and families for their understanding as we worked with HKPR to address this issue in our school.

While the additional measures that students and staff followed over the previous few days will stop as of Tuesday December 15, we will continue to follow our existing measures to keep our student and staff safe, including physical distancing, hand hygiene, and use of masks and personal protective equipment within our school.

We continue to ask all students and staff to self-monitor for signs and symptoms of COVID-19; this includes completing the daily self-assessment for symptoms which is available at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/school-screening/ 

If you or your child develop one or more of these symptoms, please immediately self-isolate at home, and seek testing. Please keep your child or yourself at home even if symptoms seem mild, like a common cold. As always, please remember to inform us if your child will be absent from school.

In closing, we thank all our students and families again for the additional precautions they adopted over the past few days, and for their support during these challenging times for our school.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Karin Mackenzie-Russell

Principal

Google Form