Divine Savior plans for in-person school

As the Northern Ozaukee School District prepares to roll out details of how five-day-a-week in-person school will operate, Divine Savior Catholic School in Fredonia also is preparing to welcome its students back this fall.

“Most families are excited to get their children back to school,” Principal Lynn Sauer said.

Like NOSD and most other schools in the area, Divine Savior is planning for students to attend school five days a week and offer an option for others to attend classes remotely.

Teachers will wear masks when they are within six feet of students or other staff members.

Younger students will not be required to wear masks, but parents can request that they wear one. Older students will wear masks when their teacher requests that they do so  when they are working in close proximity to others.

Officials with Divine Savior, which has an enrollment of about 95 students from the Random Lake and Fredonia areas, have been in contact on an almost daily basis, as have other schools, with the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department.

“We’re in constant contact and are following their guidelines,” Sauer said. “We’re following what they are asking us to do.”

Those guidelines include quarantining students or teachers for 14 days if they test positive for the Covid-19 virus. 

The health department also recommends that classmates and other teachers who came in contact with the infected person also be quarantined, Public Health Director Kirsten Johnson told members of the county Health and Human Services Committee Tuesday.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese is giving local Catholic schools wide latitude for reopening but is in the process of reviewing Divine Savior’s plan.

Meanwhile, NOSD is taking applications for its 4K classes and its Wrap-Around Care child-care program for before and after school.

NOSD is offering a remote option for 4K parents, “although we expect that to be a pretty small number,” school Supt. Dave Karrels said.

While masks for younger children will be recommended, they will not be mandated, Karrels said.

Karrels said more detailed plans on how the district will operate this coming semester will be released by the end of this week.

Applications continue to pour in to the district’s online charter school, Wisconsin Virtual Learning, with attendance possibly growing by close to 50%, or 150 students, Karrels said.

“(Applications) are tracking extremely high,” he said. “We’re seeing the same across the country” with similar programs.

Officials with the district’s other charter school, Riveredge Outdoor Learning Elementary School, or ROLES, at the Riveredge Nature Center near Newburg expect to release their plans for fall next week, Director of Education Sunny Knutson said.