Dear whānau
Tokoiti School is open for instruction tomorrow 24 March and we are continuing to take advice from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education to best manage our pandemic response.
Due to the National Alert Level being raised to Level 2:Reduce, we have taken a number of actions in order to reduce the chance of the virus being transmitted through our community.
I will be working from home in Roxburgh, teaching remotely using a variety of tools including video conferencing. We have been preparing at school to move to online learning in case the Government directed the school to close and we will start that process now. We have a number of other staff that are not able to work on-site and as such, this will change the way we operate.
We ask that you limit your time on our site, most areas of the school will be out of bounds for everyone except staff and our Trekkers. The office and my office are available to use if you need to speak with a staff member face to face, although we would like to limit these to those that are absolutely necessary. The school phone is placed in the office with speed dial buttons to be able to directly call me or Leanne if you need to speak to us.
I have set up a Facebook messenger group and tried to add as many of you to it as I can find. I would like this group to be limited to just the caregivers of our Trekkers, but if you can’t see the request to be part of the group in your other messenger inbox let me know and I can add you.
Due to the staffing reduction on-site, swimming has been canceled and our limiting of visitors to our site will mean that Kapa Haka and Bible in Schools are also canceled.
Extra cleaning of the school is going on with a particular focus on the high touch areas of the school. I know that a number of our Trekkers and their whānau may also fall into the group that has been directed to stay at home. If you are keeping your Trekker at home, please let me know and we will arrange for their Chromebook to be placed in the office where it can be collected and I can work with them from home.
It is very important that you keep your Trekker at home if they are feeling sick. We have limited staff to look after sick Trekkers while we wait for whānau to pick them up and if too many of our staff get sick then I will have no choice but to shut the school.
Finally, this is an event that we have not faced in our lifetimes and we need to come together as a community to support each other, be kind and get through this.
Yours sincerely
Mr Shannon McDougall
Principal
Tokoiti School
020 4016 2811
Tokoiti School 