Update 24 March

Kia ora o te whanau,

The health and wellbeing of our children, staff and community continues to be a top priority at Maungaraki School. We are really feeling for our families that have been impacted by Covid, please do reach out if you need anything at all.

Yesterday the government announced changes to the settings around a range of traffic light areas. Many of these will not have an impact on us as a school for some time, if at all. For now we are operating exactly as we have been and would ask that you please continue to send your child to school with an appropriate mask.

We continue to have Covid cases within the school and within our wider community, however at present these cases are dropping. Today (Thursday 24th March) we had nearly 50 students absent from school. Of these students, half had let us know they were away from school due to Covid. We have also had a high number of staff impacted by Covid. These factors are making each day at Maungaraki School a challenge for us.

As we continue to monitor these factors please continue to be prepared for the possibility that we may be forced to temporarily cease in-person learning. If the school is unable to safely staff classrooms or we have too many students away we will be forced to look at alternate arrangements.

If Maungaraki School did move to online learning we would still have a small number of staff on site to assist with students who needed to come to school, however if this was to eventuate we would be asking students to remain at home if possible. We will be in touch with more information about this, should we need to move to this option.

What you need to do:

• Prepare for the possibility of online learning
• Keep your children at home if they are displaying symptoms.
• If any develop, get tested immediately
• If you do a Rapid Antigen Test please be aware that they are not 100% accurate and you may need to do it again if symptoms persist
• Inform the school if someone in your household is Covid positive

For more information around Covid19 please go to the Covid19 website

Thank you for your support as we navigate this challenge. We are doing all we can to keep learning as normal as we can for your children while keeping health and safety a priority. We will continue to keep you updated as we review our situation. Please contact me if you have any questions at principal@maungaraki.school.nz

Noho ora mai

Shane Robinson