Announcement from Buncombe County Schools:
Today, Governor Cooper announced plans for a return to school next fall. The governor will require all schools to adhere to Plan B as we begin the new year. Plan B includes a wide array of safeguards to ensure our buildings are safe places to learn. Most importantly, this plan contains expanded physical distancing requirements; to accommodate, we will offer a hybrid or blended instruction model that includes remote learning.
An important note, all BCS families have the opportunity to choose remote learning as an option for their child(ren). Please reach out to your school’s principal via email if you want to sign up. Remote-only learning will be taught by a BCS teacher with a BCS curriculum.
What You Need to Do:
1) Ensure that your information is correct in PowerSchool. Contact your school’s data manager if you have not been receiving phone calls or emails.
2) If you prefer remote-only learning next semester, please email your school’s principal. BCS will also send out one more phone questionnaire for those who have not completed one yet on Wednesday (7/15) beginning at 5:30 pm.
3) For parents who prefer in-person instruction in Plan B, we will need to know if your child will need transportation to and from school. This step is critical, as Plan B includes tight restrictions on bus capacity. We must know exactly what students need transportation in the morning and the afternoon in order to plan our bus routes. Please email your school’s principal or take the BCS Questionnaire on Wednesday.
Plan B includes all of the Plan A requirements such as daily temperature checks, enhanced cleaning protocols, and masks or face shields required for all staff, students, and visitors.
Plan B adds several more safety protocols including:
Reduced capacity in buildings and school buses. Due to the capacity restriction, this will be a hybrid model that includes both physical classroom and remote instruction for our students.
At the July 2 Special Called Meeting, the BCS Board of Education endorsed the following details for Plan B to begin our school year on Aug. 17:
Students in grades K-8 will attend school on a rotating schedule of one week in-person and one week remote. At this time, students in grades 9-12 will learn remotely at-home with personalized instruction from teachers but will begin the year on an in-person rotation schedule to ensure student devices are updated and expectations and curriculum are understood. The details of our Plan B could be re-evaluated after the first two weeks of school based on the capacity available after all remote-only students are accounted for.
In the coming weeks, we will provide further details and next steps for our families and staff. Much planning has been invested in new safety protocols for school buildings and buses. For a preview of those procedures, you may view our JumpStart Summer Training Video HERE.
The one constant throughout this experience is change! As such, these plans will be refined locally and on a state level in the coming weeks in response to how controlled the pandemic is in our area. We may need to adopt different plans over the next few months as health conditions change.
In closing, to stay up-to-date on all important notifications, please download the BCS app to your smartphone and visit ReturnToLearn.BuncombeSchools.
org.
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.