In order to plan for the fall, we are asking all families to fill out the survey (link can be found below) to indicate your preference for how your children will attend school for the upcoming year. Please fill out a survey for each of your children that attend or will attend Haverhill Public Schools this year.

Dear Families,We are living in a stressful and confusing time, and the ritual of back to school seems to have set the country in a tail-spin. Each school system is looking at their community health data, organizational capacity and community preferences to determine the best course of action for the coming school year. For Haverhill the key to a successful return to school seems to be rooted in family choice. We recognize that some families do not feel comfortable sending their children to school at this time regardless of the safety measures in place. Other families are overwhelmed by financial burdens and the pressure of returning to work, still others feel that the structure, routine and socialization of in-person learning is imperative for their child’s health and learning.As such, we have designed our return to school models with parent choice and student need in mind. All models operate with a shared set of instructional principles, each is free to families, and every child will be provided a chrome-book to support their learning. Our re-opening models include the choice of :

Hybrid Learning Model: students will attend in-person schooling 2 days per week either Monday/Tuesday (cohort A) or Thursday/Friday (cohort B) and receive remote instruction on the opposite days and Wednesday. We will make every attempt to support parent choice of cohort A or B and to place siblings into the same cohorts.

Remote Learning Model: Students will opt-in to on-line instruction (remote learning) provided by Haverhill Public Schools. Remote learning will follow the calendar and school day expectations of HPS.For children with special learning needs there will be an additional model which student will be invited to join by their school:

High Needs Intensive Instruction Model: students in substantially separate special education classrooms and Level 1 and 2 English Language Learners (EL) will be invited to attend in-person school four days per week with Wednesday as a remote day. We will gradually and safely expand the intensive instruction model to more students.

The situation is clearly in flux and changes will continue to occur, however, as we edge closer to the opening of school it is important that we have accurate data about the wants and needs of our families and staff. We ask all families to complete this brief back-to-school preference survey https://forms.gle/FTDQtkBwfhEFZ9oJ7.

Our hope is to have 100% response rate from our families and will be following up with those we do not reach by phone and other methods.Our goal will be to determine which children will attend in-person learning and which will attend remote. This data is imperative in order to properly plan for the opening of school. If 60% or more of our students chose a remote learning option, we will likely not require a hybrid model and those students that prefer in-person learning will be invited to attend four days per week with a remote day on Wednesday, Families that do not respond to the survey will be placed in a hybrid learning cohort.

HPS reopening models include contingency plans for a number of scenarios. If we see a community spike in cases of COVID-19, we will work with our local and state health officials to consider recommending that we close schools to in-person learning for a period of time.

For more details on the reopening models, including safety, health, transportation, sanitizing, special education, English Learner services, Moody preschool, and more please review our most updated Haverhill Public Schools Reopening Plan.

Finally, the HPS student school year will begin on September 16, 2020. This is a Wednesday and a remote learning day; your school will be in touch with more details. We will begin to phase in our in-person learning beginning on September 17, 2020, and all students that wish to begin in-person learning will do so no later than October 19, 2020.We thank you for your investment in your child’s education and your support of our schools.

Be well,Margaret Marotta EdD Superintendent of Schools