Del Crest Middle School

Good afternoon Mid-Del Families,

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On October 29, our school board approved my recommendation to bring our students back to school for full in-person instruction four days a week. We tied the plan to the Oklahoma State Department of Health weekly report, which at that time included the percentage of available beds in Oklahoma County. The prior week, that figure had been 18.3%. The OSDH trigger for turning Oklahoma County red (high risk) would be if that number fell below 5%.

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Subsequent OSDH weekly reports have not shown the figure for the percentage of available hospital beds. We have tried to get that information from OSDH, the Oklahoma City/County Health Department, the Oklahoma Hospital Association, and even the Oklahoma State Department of Education. The closest anyone can point us is to the statewide bed availability, which shows 7%. But that’s not the data point we committed to.

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The OSDH map still shows Oklahoma County as orange. In fact, it shows the entire state as orange. While we still aren’t seeing institutional spread happening at our schools, we understand that community spread is rampant. Because of this, and because our plan is tied to a data point that is no longer published, we will move all schools to remote learning for the week of November 16-20. 

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We will schedule a special board meeting as soon as we can to update our plan yet again. While I know the thought of another change frustrates many of our staff and families, we have to tie our plan to data that we can track over time.

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Take care, and have a great weekend.

Dr. Rick CobbSuperintendent
Mid-Del Public Schools