Telluride School District R- 1

Through quality education our students will achieve personal success.

September 18, 2021

Dear TSD Families,

I will keep today’s message short, providing a few brief updates.

BOE Staff and Community Forums – As I mentioned in my message of September 11, the BOE will be hosting forums for staff and community to share information and gather feedback on Policy Governance and Vision/Mission/Ends statements.  The BOE wants to move forward with goals and focus areas that are aligned with what staff and community feel are important; that is the purpose of these forums.  While locations are still being finalized, the following schedule has been set for forums:

• Tuesday, September 28: staff at 3:30, community at 5:30
• Wednesday, October 6: staff at 3:30, community at 5:30
• Monday, October 11: staff at 3:30, community at 5:30

COVID Testing – We tested 572 staff and students on Thursday, and have received 562 results at this point.  3 students plus 1 staff tested positive, and the remaining results were negative.  The results that are not in yet will likely be inconclusive; we will update our dashboard with final results early next week.  In addition, we had 7 other students test positive outside of our school testing since last week; 2 at TMHS and 5 at TIS.

I am sorry to say that we will need to transition away from using MicrogenDX as our COVID testing company over the next several weeks.  While Microgen has provided great service to us since last January, CDPHE has determined that Microgen’s contract can only apply to community test sites (such as the Lawson Hill Interceptor Lot test site) and not school test sites.  This follows from CDPHE completing an RFP process for school testing this summer.  CDPHE has assured us that we will be able to continue with Microgen until we have a new vendor in place.  We will be completing a pilot program with Midwest Coordination Center (https://testedandprotected.org/#/) over the next few weeks.  Midwest is a federally funded testing service.  As with Microgen, we will not test children without parents completing waivers, so we will send out information for you to complete a new waiver prior to your child being tested with Midwest.  We will also continue to have Abbot BinaxNOW rapid test on hand to supplement our PCR weekly testing.

Thank you,

John Pandolfo

Superintendent

jpandolfo@telluride.k12.co.us

970-369-1213