HELENA — As of Thursday, Helena Public Schools are canceling district and school affiliated out of state travel.
This includes several planned high school trips in March and April.
Superintendent Tyler Ream says in-state trips are still scheduled, but the district is suspending any planned, school-sponsored indoor gatherings open to the public until the end of April.
Those include school plays and concerts.
Ream's full statement is below:
The COVID-19 Coronavirus situation is rapidly evolving with new information becoming available every hour. Again, Montana is one of the few states without an identified COVID-19 Coronavirus case, but experts warn of an impending change. Locally, closures and cancellations have begun including the Montana University System’s announcement today that they will be moving to an online platform following their spring break next week.
As a district, we continue to work closely with state and local officials in monitoring the situation internationally, nationally and locally here in Helena. As of today, the Helena Public Schools are canceling district/school affiliated out-of-state travel. This includes several planned high school trips to large student gatherings planned for the coming weeks. While I understand that this decision comes as a disappointment to all involved, right now, the health of our students, employees, families and community remains our top priority. These cancellations include planned trips for March and April (May and June TBD). If these cancellations impact a trip that your child was scheduled to take, please look for more specific guidance from the lead staff member associated with that planned trip. At this time, in-state trips remain scheduled but please know that should our situation in Montana change, cancellations could impact all school-related trips.
Additionally, we are suspending any planned, school-sponsored, indoor gatherings open to the public for the immediate future (03.13.20 through the end of April). These include school-sponsored, indoor theater productions, concerts, school carnivals, etc. The fewer indoor gatherings we hold, the better we are likely serving our collective community at this time. Please know that these events are not necessarily canceled. Rather, we will continue to monitor this ongoing situation and potentially reschedule at a later date. Again, suspended events include any school-sponsored, indoor gatherings open to the public for the months of March and April (May and June TBD).
At this time, our schools remain open for our regularly scheduled school day. Similar to schools and districts in other states, we are working with local and state officials to closely evaluate each day. While these are unnerving times, I remain thankful to our partners and for everyone serving the health needs of our Helena community.
Thank you again for your time and ongoing partnership as we carefully work to collectively navigate the ongoing matter pertaining to the COVID-19 Coronavirus.
