PARENT FORUM SET WITH SUPERINTENDENT AND HEALTH DIRECTOR

New Milford Public Schools plans to hold a virtual Parent Forum on Tuesday with Superintendent Alisha DiCorpo and Health Director Lisa Morrissey, according to a letter sent to parents and guardians.

The meeting will be held via Zoom from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The letter, dated April 1, suggests that the meeting will cover parental concerns and questions over rising COVID-19 case numbers in the area. In the past three weeks, New Milford’s COVID cases have gone from 35 cases per week to 97 then to 141 cases this past week, a near quadrupling of case numbers.

The case rate is now 63 per 100,000 residents, up from 33.9 last week.

“I am writing to let you know that we are not seeing transmission of COVID-19 in our schools and that the increase in cases is not due to us opening the schools to in person learning,” DiCorpo writes.

Earlier this week, Morrissey pointed to youth sports and daycare center clusters as major components of the outbreak.

Parents and guardians are asked to share questions ahead of time by emailing the superintendent’s office. Questions will also be taken at the meeting, the letter said.

DiCorpo also states that the district is hoping to create an online dashboard for communications with parents and guardians to cut back on the number of emails they have been receiving. This technology would be implemented on all school sites, but is not yet up and running.

DiCorpo ends the letter by reminding parents to wait for a negative test before sending children back to school, and to “please stay diligent.”