In addition to Lincoln Public Schools announcing in person graduations, the district also posted a letter to families outlining how students return to buildings in the fall.
Lincoln Public Schools families,
We have carefully reviewed national, state and local executive and directed health measure orders, thousands of responses from our family survey, and continue in close consultation with the Nebraska Commissioner of Education and the Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department (LLCHD). At the present time, based on all the above and to align with the Governor and the Commissioner of Education announcing this week that schools will return with in-person learning in the fall, we are planning to have 100 percent of students return to classes in our buildings starting August 12.
LPS will conduct classes and operate within the framework of the four risk color statuses of the COVID-19 Risk Dial as designated by LLCHD and the City of Lincoln. Our objective is to have students in school as much as possible. It is widely acknowledged that is the best option for student learning and for our community. There will be health directives and requirements from national, state or local health officials or the Nebraska Department of Education that we must follow in order to keep students in our schools and help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community. LPS continues to develop possibilities for providing quality education next school year during this pandemic. A community steering committee consisting of staff, community members and parents will help guide our plans for the four risk dial colors — keeping in mind that just like our Standard Response Protocols, every building may not always be in the same color category.
Accommodations will be considered for students with health or family health concerns. For students who are not able to attend in person, one accommodation that will be available is an option for families to utilize synchronous online learning through Zoom. Synchronous means remote students log-on to receive instruction with their class at certain set times during the school day. We will communicate more information with you later this summer about how you can select this option.
There are many details that still need to be considered and we will announce more detailed information as we get closer to August. Below is the framework and Lincoln Public Schools 2020-2021 Pandemic Procedures information we have available at this time to help answer some of your questions.