On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was signed into Law. The ARP Act provides funding to allow state and local education agencies to take additional steps for continued safe in-person instruction and to address unfinished teaching and learning to mitigate challenge through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Section 2001(i)(1) of the ARP Act requires each district to develop and make publicly available on their website a plan for the Safe Return to School and Continuity of Services Plan. We are currently seeking public comment on the Dixon School Safe Return Plan as we continue to draft our next steps.

The plan provides a way for state and federal agencies to ensure responsible use of funding as we collaborate as communities to meet district goals keeping student, staff, and community health and well-being prioritized as we ensure high quality instructional programming. 

If a district developed a plan prior to enactment of the ARP Act that meets the statutory requirements under sections 2001(i)(1) and (2) of the ARP Act we can review and revise the existing plan to ensure continued mitigation strategies consistent with the CDC to the greatest extent practicable (See Appendix B for our original plan)

The plan will remain posted as we seek continued public comment and continue to follow the policies and practices noted while engaging in a review process to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our students, teachers, staff and community through 2024. The Dixon School LE#0809 Safe Return to School and Continuity of Services Plan will be placed as a discussion item on every Board Meeting agenda through the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Public comment can be made at those meetings or through the link provided below. 

The most notable changes are posted below the plan: Overview of Phases for Opening and for Maintaining Continuity of Services and Phase 3 practices. 

Please take some time to review our plan and provide feedback. Dixon has fortunately not seen recent localized cases of COVID-19 and with no current high risk of spread we are operating in Phase 3 for summer programming. We appreciate all local efforts to keep our community healthy so we can begin school year 2021-2022 with as much normalcy as possible.