Buncombe County Schools to resume in-person learning Feb. 15

Press release from Buncombe County Schools:

The BCS Board of Education met for a regular board meeting on Feb. 4 and voted to move all BCS students into Plan B beginning on Monday, Feb. 15. As a reminder, Plan B consists of in-person learning in Group A (Monday/Tuesday) or Group B (Thursday/Friday). Wednesday will be an asynchronous, remote learning day for all students with the exception of small groups of students who will attend school for targeted support and remediation. Please note, if you have opted for virtual instruction for the remainder of this semester, your child will remain a virtual learner, and the decision will not affect you.

The school board has closely conferred with local health experts and monitored our local COVID-19 metrics, which have consistently and significantly trended down over the past three weeks. Likewise, our schools have shown that the health and safety measures associated with Plan B can be successfully maintained in our schools. We continue to emphasize the 3 W’s (both in and out of school) and will adhere to the updates in the North Carolina Health and Human Services Strong Schools toolkit. Superintendent Dr. Tony Baldwin recognizes the extraordinary efforts by our teachers and staff to provide the best instruction to our students during this remote learning period, but internal data outlined at today’s work session reflect a need for a return to in-person instruction for our students.

Next week, schools will be reaching out to families regarding scheduling and bus assignments.

At the Feb. 4 meeting, the board also adopted guidelines to help the board in making further Return to Learn decisions. More details are below:

The board will meet in a special called session to consider a change in plans if any of the following metrics are met following a 14-day pattern of improvement or increased risk:

• Plan A = Diagnostic Test Positivity Rate (5% or lower) AND Yellow on the County Alert System Map

• Plan B = Diagnostic Test Positivity Rate (7.9% or lower) AND Orange/Yellow on the County Alert System Map

• Plan C = Diagnostic Test Positivity Rate (8% or higher) OR Red on the NC County Alert System Map.

These are guidelines and benchmarks only and subject to consideration in the final decision-making process, along with weekly patterns and trends associated with the following points of local data: new positive cases per 100,000 population, percent change in new positive cases per 100,000 population and number of school clusters.

Thank you!