September 2021
Dear DCS Community:
As I have learned, it is never too early to provide information about school closures. As you are aware, there are occasionally conditions that call for a closure of school buildings. Because of this, the district has allotted three days in its calendar for emergency school closure. In the event the district needs to close, it will utilize these emergency closure days first. School closure status will be communicated by the district’s auto calling system and will be posted on the websites of local media outlets, including on the lower scrolls of local television news stations. We will do our best to notify you regarding closures with as much advance notice as possible so that you can make necessary arrangements.
Remote Learning Days
The Department of Education has allowed school districts the opportunity to pilot the use of remote instruction in place of closures. If all closure days have been used, we will call a “Remote Learning Day” in order to prevent having to subtract days from school holidays. If a “Remote Learning Day” is called, students should login to Seesaw or Google Classroom and participate remotely with live instruction from teachers. Modified schedules may be sent to students through email.
Delays
In the event that additional time is needed in the morning to ready the schools for in person instruction, you will see a message labeled “District on (1 or 2) Hour Delay.” This means that bus pick up and school start times will be either one or two hours later than usual. School dismissal and afternoon bus times will remain the same.
Early Dismissal During Inclement Weather
In the rare event that early dismissal is necessary, notification will be made as early in the day as possible. All parents, especially working parents, should instruct their children where to go if schools are dismissed unexpectedly during the day.
Additional Information About Cancellations
As a general rule, when school is closed for the day or there is an early dismissal, all afterschool and athletic activities and evening events are cancelled unless it is otherwise announced.
Parent Judgement and Unique Circumstances
Parents who deem roads unsafe for travel due to weather, or feel that the weather conditions are not acceptable for their child(ren) to attend school, regardless of a District announcement, should use their own judgment as to whether to send their child to school or to transport them at a later time. Instructional time is crucial to ensuring our students’ academic success, but the safety of our students is always the district’s number one priority.
We also know that some circumstances, such as home power outages, will sometimes prevent attendance remotely or in person. Please notify the office in the building your child(ren) attend so that we are aware of these events.
I hope that this information provides you with some insight into our school closure protocols. As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for your continued support.
Best,
Jim Niedermeier, Ed.D.
Superintendent