School year is off to a safe, solid start

With the first week of the school year behind us, having our students in the buildings and receiving instruction daily has truly been a highly anticipated and positive experience. Even with the extra measures we need to take to keep our students and staff safe, having them present and getting back to some resemblance of school as they know it to be, has been worth every effort made on everyone’s part.
At this time, we continue to receive valuable feedback from our staff as to how the reopening plan is going, including their perspective on everything from the masking mandate to the complexity of providing both face-to-face and virtual instruction in a simultaneous format.
Additionally, we continue to meet with the Board of Education on our current practices and will make alterations to our plan that are responsive to the current conditions in our communities and schools. What this means exactly is that at this point in time, we fully understand there is no perfect solution to achieving our best intentions of keeping students in school and attending every single day. That is our plan, and we will do what we have to in an effort to sustain face-to-face instruction, so long as it is possible and safe.
Everything to date has changed — from food service, to transportation, to instructional delivery, to extra and co-curricular activities. We will get back to normal, and many of us long for that day. While we work through this unprecedented time in our lives, please feel free to reach out and let us know how we’re doing. We do value all the feedback we receive.
You can always reach me at grogowski@wittbirn.k12.wi.us or by phone 715-253-2213. Thank you for your continued support of our students and their school experiences.

Garrett Rogowski is the superintendent of the Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District