Missoula County Public Schools to Continue with Remote Learning

The Superintendent of Missoula County Public Schools sent out an email to families today to announce the decision to remain closed for the remainder of the 2019/2020 school year, and continue with remote learning. This decision was expected, but now that it's official, families can better plan for the next 6 weeks of life. This is a welcome relief to some MCPS families who would prefer more time before allowing their children back into groups, and a big pain for families with parents who are still working, or going back to work, and do not have child care. There are so many pros and cons to the decision, but at the end of the day, as a parent, I am grateful that our community has responded proactively to keeping our kids safe. Here's the full letter from Superintendent Rob Watson.

Dear MCPS Families:

After deliberation and consideration of public input, our MCPS Board of Trustees voted today to keep our schools on our remote learning plan through the remainder of the school year. If you are interested in some of the key issues that informed this decision, I have shared them at the bottom of this letter.

Our school campuses, office buildings, and playgrounds will remain closed until further notice.

Between May 4th and May 13th, we will work with administrators and our educators to finalize our grading information so that we can inform our families. In addition, I have asked our response team to start working on an “end-of-year” plan that includes operational topics such as, return of materials, locker/desk cleanout and other tasks we will need to accomplish in a safe manner as we think about wrapping up the end of the year.

I understand that today's decision to remain on remote learning brings relief to some and anxiety for others. The good news is that we now have the ability to plan out the next six weeks of our school year with an understanding that we will remain in our remote learning mode of instruction and operations.

Finally, I value the input of our parent community. If you are interested in joining the parents on my Superintendent’s Advisory Council for our final meeting, we will be hosting a virtual Town Hall on Monday, May 4th at 4pm. I have a few things to discuss:

• Remote learning
• Year-end plans
• Summer programming
• Reopening school plans

Please click this link if you would like to join that meeting and see below for detailed joining information.  We will also attempt to share a livestream of this event or a recording after the fact on our Facebook page.

With gratitude,

Rob Watson

Superintendent