Is Your School Preparing Its COVID-19 Preparedness Plan? If So, Beware of Relying Exclusively on the Return to School Roadmap

Since Governor Whitmer issued Executive Order 2020-142 (Provision of PreK-12 Education for the 2020-21 School Year) along with the accompanying Return to School Roadmap (“Roadmap”), public and nonpublic schools have been working diligently on creating their compliant COVID-19 Preparedness Plans. And because the Executive Order requires that schools use the more comprehensive Roadmap to “inform” their Preparedness Plans, many schools have relied heavily on that document when creating their Plans. That’s a good idea. However, schools should also be aware that certain provisions that are “required” by the Executive Order do not appear in the Roadmap. Specifically, under the Executive Order, when the school’s region is in Phase 1-3 of the Michigan Safe Start Plan, the Preparedness Plan must:

• Offer alternative modes of instruction other than in-person instruction and a summary of materials each student and the student’s parents or guardians will need to meaningfully access the alternative modes of instruction included in the Preparedness Plan;
• If the Preparedness Plan relies on electronic instruction, the Plan must consider how the District will aid students who lack access to computers or the internet; and
• Provide for the continued pay of school employees while redeploying staff to provide meaningful work in the context of the Preparedness Plan, subject to any applicable requirements of a collective bargaining agreement.

Miller Johnson has developed a Preparedness Plan template that combines the requirements of Executive Order 2020-142 with all of the “required,” “strongly recommended” and “recommended” protocols from the Roadmap. That template also includes guidance to help walk school administrators and their teams through Preparedness Plan development.

The Preparedness Plan template is free to subscribers of Miller Johnson’s COVID-19 Resource Center, and available for purchase individually for $500.00. 

To purchase the Education COVID-19 Preparedness Plan Template, please email the following to romencek@millerjohnson.com.

• Organization name
• Address
• Ordering contact name
• Email
• Phone

A link will be sent to you for document download within one business day and your organization will be invoiced separately for the purchase..