Update From PA Departments Of Health And Education For Lehigh County

Press release from East Penn School District:

November 2, 2020

Dear Parent/Guardian:

Today, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and the PA Department of Health (PA DOH) held a meeting with Lehigh County school leaders to discuss county levels of COVID-19 transmission.

On August 10th, the PA DOH and the PDE issued a tiered chart to identify the thresholds of community transmission. This Level of Community Transmission Table included recommendations for instructional models based on the level of community transmission: low, moderate or substantial.

Lehigh County school leaders were informed today that, based on the most recent Lehigh County Covid data, Lehigh County has recently moved from a moderate to substantial level of community transmission. Since this is the first week that Lehigh County has been rated as substantial, PDE and PA DOH have recommended that school districts maintain their current instructional models.

It is anticipated that updated data will be released on November 6th.

If Lehigh County remains at the current level of substantial community transmission, PDE and PA DOH plan to recommend that schools in Lehigh County switch to a remote instructional model of learning until the county returns to a moderate level of community transmission.

At this time, East Penn School District will maintain our hybrid instructional model with a remote learning option. It is important to have contingency plans if a building or our entire district needs to switch to fully remote instruction for the short or long term.

We anticipate an update to the Lehigh County data this week and will communicate any changes in our instructional model after that data is released.

Sincerely,

Kristen CampbellSuperintendent of Schools

Spanish Translation

This press release was produced by the East Penn School District.The views expressed here are the author’s own.