Recently, Superintendent Adam Steel released a statement to the town regarding the school district’s plan for segment 6.  In the statement, Superintendent Steel made clear that students will have the opportunity to return to in-person learning.  

Steel also made it very clear that, “these decisions are controversial” given a variety of developing factors such as surges in cases, the safety of staff and students, the concern of community members and the expenses accrued from such a model.  However, Steel remains confident that students and staff can return if they maintain mask-wearing, proper hygiene, and disinfecting practices. 

According to the Nixle statement, Steel asked the community to abide by following  rules:

• 1. Acceptance and support for mitigation efforts, even if personal objections to them. Including masks wearing, social distancing, and hand hygiene.
• Continued notification to the school district of all positive tests through the email covidalerts@sau39.org. 
• Parents/Guardians must complete a daily COVID screening before sending students to school each day. Parents/Guardians will be contacted to pick up students who come to school without a completed screening. The COVID screening is located in the PowerSchool parent portal (on a browser). 
• The school district encourages you to make good decisions outside of school. Be mindful that choices outside of school can impact the on-going success of our in-person model.

With this information, families need to make a decision based on their personal comfort and safety by the end of January 11th.  Segment 6 will be two weeks long beginning on January 19th and ending on the 29th. In an email exchange, Steel stated, “I want all Souhegan students to know I understand how hard it is to be home and the value of our school.”