October 23, 2020

Dear Stoddert Families,

Thanks to those who were able to participate in Wednesday’s roundtable discussion. The roundtable was a great opportunity for parents, teachers, and administrators to communicate directly, and more roundtables will be scheduled in the coming weeks.

You may be aware of the recent action taken by the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) regarding school reopening. As a result of that action, the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) ordered that DCPS negotiate with WTU over health and safety matters. PERB also determined that DCPS must rescind the Intent Form that it sent to teachers on June 30, and the Staffing Assignment survey it sent teachers on September 29.

As a result, schools are not currently able to determine which teachers and staff members will be returning to in-person learning, and which teachers and staff members will continue with virtual learning. WTU and DCPS are negotiating in good faith, so hopefully the health and safety concerns will be resolved soon, and schools will be able to finalize in-person and virtual staffing.

As those negotiations are occurring, DCPS is continuing with its return to school plans, and preparing to safely reopen schools to some students on November 9.  A randomized selection process is being used to select 10-11 students per grade level for in-person instruction. If your child is randomly selected to receive an in-person seat offer, here’s what will happen:

• DCPS will send you an email notification of the seat offer. This email notification process will begin as early as Friday, October 23.
• After you receive the email notification, you will need to confirm acceptance of the seat, or decline acceptance of the seat, abiding by a timeline which will be stated in the email.
• Our goal at Stoddert is to personally telephone the family of each child who has received an in-person seat offer and get a verbal confirmation of seat acceptance or seat decline. Those phone calls will be made by one of these Stoddert staff members: Principal Bryant, Assistant Principal Villegas, Business Manager Jill Sanderson, or Attendance Counselor Victoria Legerwood-Rivera. 
• You may also telephone the school at 202-671-6030 to confirm your acceptance of the seat, but we are operating with a skeleton office staff, so your phone call may not be promptly answered.

A similar process will take place in early November to offer seats for CARE classrooms. 

CARE classrooms 

• Will accommodate 10-11 students, probably from different grade levels. 
• CARE classroom students will be working on-line with their regular virtual classroom teacher, using headphones.
• CARE classroom students will be supervised by an adult who is not their classroom teacher, and may be a DCPS employee from a different school.
• CARE classroom students will have assigned, safely distanced seats, and will be required to wear masks at all times except when they are eating or drinking.
• CARE classroom students will remain with their cohort of 10-11 students the entire day, including breakfast and lunch which will be eaten in the CARE classroom.
• Each cohort of CARE classroom students will receive daily recess at staggered times, to minimize exposure to other students.
• DCPS will use a randomized selection process to offer CARE seats to students, with priority given to students experiencing homelessness, students receiving special education or ELL services, students classified as at-risk, and then all other students.
• CARE classroom seat offers will occur by October 30, which is after in-person seat offers have been made.
• CARE classrooms will begin the week of November 16 for students in PK through 1st grade, and the week of November 30 for students in grades 2-5.

In order to plan for CARE classrooms at Stoddert, and to have an idea of how many staff members will be needed, I need to know how many of you would accept a seat in a CARE classroom for your child. 

• The most direct and efficient way for you to get that information to me is by emailing me with a simple statement such as: I am the parent of Sally Smith in 2nd grade. If my child were offered a seat in a CARE classroom, I would accept that seat. 
• Please send those emails to by Wednesday, October 28 to Donald.bryant@k12.dc.gov 

As always, thanks for your continued support.

Principal Bryant and Assistant Principal Villegas