Grand Valley Local School District

September 15, 2021

To the Grand Valley Students, Staff, Families and Community,

We had an administrative meeting yesterday and reviewed all our data on Covid in the community, Covid in the school, how many students and staff are currently required to quarantine and future mitigation strategies.

Currently our rubric puts us in the "Highly Recommended to Mask" status. Our counts in the community are rising somewhat, however, the amount of students who have to go home for quarantine purposes is beginning to become alarming. We have had 27 students get quarantined just recently, and if they were wearing masks, only 3 of them would have to quarantine.

An education delivered virtually or given with hard copy make up work at home is in no way comparable to a quality education from our live teaching staff. So, at some point when we have enough students out of the classrooms, It may be more safe and educationally sound to have masks required indoors to add another layer of protection, give quality education and avoid mass quarantine. 

The quarantine in the elementary school is a hardship on the parents, because many have to take off work to be with their child. All of the currently quarantined students have shown no symptoms thus far.

Please stay tuned to the latest policies when it relates to our health, safety, masking and student education. Currently we are still "Highly Recommending Masks" indoors for our students and staff in all our buildings.

In the spirit of trying to keep kids in-person learning and to avoid hardships on working parents that may need to seek daycare for a quarantined child, we may need a masking initiative down the road.  We’ll see how the numbers take us.

We are all in this together! BN

Dr. William R. Nye Jr.
Superintendent, Grand Valley Local Schools