Dear KSD Community,

I want to begin this letter with gratitude to our students, staff and parents/guardians. During the last week we endured a number of changes that impacted our daily school operations. Daylight savings extended our days, in school masking transitioned from required to strongly recommended, and we launched our final trimester of the 2021-22 school year. I thank you for your partnership as we faced these transitions together in the best interest of our students, staff, and families.

Over the next two Thursdays, March 24 and March 31, Kent and Bacich respectively will host a traditional Open House where students can offer their parents/guardians a peek into a day in the life of a Kent Falcon or Bacich Bear. Both principals have shared communications outlining what you may expect from these annual school sponsored events (Kent Notice - Bacich Notice).

With over 1,000 anticipated attendees at each Open House, Marin Public Health has categorized these gatherings as "Mega-Events." Since we do not have the capacity to monitor vaccination status nor negative Covid-19 testing prior to the event, the KSD will require all attendees to wear masks while indoors.

We thank you for working with us to help keep our school settings as safe as possible.

Raquel Rose
Superintendent
rrose@kentfieldschools.org

On-Site Public Health COVID-19 Testing

Over the last two weeks the Marin Public Health’s case tracker showed an increase of COVID-19 cases reported from Bacich School. With masking no longer mandatory, Marin Public Health is concerned that transmission will continue to spread to more students/staff if we do not intervene in specifically identified classrooms. On Wednesday, March 23, Marin Public Health will deploy a testing team to Bacich School to provide on-site rapid testing to targeted classrooms. This testing is an effort to identify COVID-19 cases that may be asymptomatic spreaders.

Notification was sent via ParentSquare this morning to identified classrooms. Marin Public Health is strongly recommending all students and staff in these identified classrooms participate in this on-site testing to help minimize further COVID-19 transmission. We wanted to share this message with the entire KSD community in an effort to be transparent and acknowledge that COVID-19 is still very much in the community and it is important to maintain vigilance. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our school nurse, Laurel Yrun at lyrun@kentfiedlschools.org.