A Letter From The Director

Virtual Learning Only From November 23rd to December 6th

November 16, 2020

Hello CMTHS Families,

An increase in COVID positivity rates was anticipated this fall, and Montgomery County and many parts of Pennsylvania and the U.S. are now seeing increases.

In an effort to proactively address the potential for school-based transmission, CMTHS will be following the order of the Montgomery County Office of Public Health, which has voted to require all schools to move to virtual/remote learning only between November 23 and December 6. This order applies to all students, and all in-school student activities during this time period.

The Office of Public Health (OPH) has told schools that it wants to take a proactive approach in anticipation that families will be gathering and traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The OPH believes this two-week move to fully virtual instruction will ultimately give schools a stronger chance at remaining in-person in some capacity after the holiday.

The OPH and CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) have told public schools that the two-week move to virtual instruction is prudent given a surge in rising case counts and an increase in hospitalizations. As always, the safety of our students and staff remains our priority. As we continue to move through a challenging school year, we continue to rely on the advice and support of local medical experts and the Montgomery County OPH to help guide our decisions.

Health officials from OPH and CHOP’s Policy Lab have said that transmission in schools has been low this school year due to strong mitigation efforts such as social distancing, mask wearing, and strong hygiene and sanitizing procedures. CMTHS has additionally created very specific entrances, parking strategies, eliminated unnecessary hallway traffic, eliminated group meetings and congregant areas, assigned rest rooms, and has implemented many other important strategies to keep our students and staff as safe as possible.  While there have not been any reported cases at CMTHS, the OPH has said that contact tracing shows most positive cases in school students and staff have originated from events outside of school, such as social gatherings and recreational league sports.

Our success here at CMTHS has been a credit to our unyielding care exemplified by our students and staff.  At CMTHS it is imperative that we also rely on the support of our community to provide in-person instruction.  Our community complying with all the necessary measures to stay safe in school and in the community during the holiday season will continue to be the key to our success.   We appreciate everyone’s cooperation and vigilance with safety (masks, distancing, hygiene) both in and out of school.  At CMTHS we carefully monitor our staff each day for symptoms and illness.  We ask our CMTHS parents and students to continue the careful monitoring of our students for symptoms and illness each evening and in the mornings.

The past two months have been a challenge, and we are up for the challenge of the upcoming months.  We look forward to seeing all of our students in the near future as we continue to collaborate with our sending districts and follow the advice of our OPH and medical experts.

Stay safe!

Seth Schram

Administrative Director

CMTHS Community Partners in Education

CMTHS would like to thank our Community Partners for all that they have done, and continue to do, to support our CMTHS Community during this time.

Please visit our Facebook page to see the latest and greatest things that our community is doing! Please consider patronizing these supporters.

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Click HERE to learn more about our community partners.

Helpful Links and Information

Check out our Virtual Learning Hub for Instructions on how to log into Schoology and PowerSchool.

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Click HERE to view:

The CMTHS Health & Safety Plan and Reopening Models

The CMTHS Reopening Models Power Point

A video of the August JOC Meeting

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Click HERE to view the Driver's Ed Reopening Plan