On Monday, June 22nd, the Bishop Kelly Board of Governance enthusiastically approved both our 2020- 2021 Instructional Plan that we shared at the Virtual Town Hall on June 17th, and the extra expenses (not to exceed $485,000) to implement the plan. On Monday, August 3rd the board approved the additional plans that we have made to reopen school in a phased approach. We shared this plan in a Virtual Town Hall on Thursday, August 6th. If you were unable to attend the meeting, you can view a recording of the live stream on our Bishop Kelly High School YouTube Channel.

You can also view THIS SLIDE DECK that was presented at the Virtual Town Hall.

Once you have familiarized yourself with our phased reopening plan, please complete THIS PARENT SURVEY. Your feedback and questions are important to helping us execute our plan.

With your input, we developed a plan to meet the four goals we set:

1. Make the learning experience exceptional for all BK students and faculty & staff
2. Build a plan that provides flexibility, adaptability and options for our students, faculty/staff and our school
3. Keep our students, faculty/staff and community safe and healthy
4. Engage our parents and community as partners to the overall learning experience of our students

We have created a safe learning model, working with Central District Health and our faculty, administration and staff, that has the following six key strategies:

1. Have ALL students and staff on campus on a daily basis.
2. Establish appropriate, safe distancing protocols in classrooms, in halls and in gathering spaces
3. Rethink and maximize all physical space on campus to help us meet our goals.
4. Provide more flexibility and autonomy in the school day for students to spend time on areas of need.
5. Provide additional time during the week for faculty for prep, planning, training and collaboration.
6. As needed, we will utilize technology to help support our goals.

Our current situation is difficult, and unprecedented. There is no easy “one size fits all” solution for educating students during a pandemic. We believe that our planned approach strikes a careful balance of all aspects of personal health and sets us up for long-term success with in person learning. However the plan is only as good as it’s execution, and we need our entire community to work together to help us be successful. Parents, please start setting expectations and being an example now for your students.

We have hired a substantial number of additional faculty (+ 6 FT, +4 PT) for 2020-2021 to execute the plan. These new teachers, along with some internal staffing shifts and the rethinking and maximizing utilization of all physical space on campus, will allow us to bring average class sizes down from an average of 21-22 to an average class size of 16 in all “classrooms” and provide social distancing.

We are in the process of updating our FAQ document with information about the phased reopening plan.  The questions and concerns that you submitted during the Virtual Town Hall meetings, and through our two parent surveys, are guiding the creation of this FAQ document. We are addressing what we know at this time about our rolling block/phased reopening schedule, electives for juniors and seniors, bus service, lunch service, cleaning and safety protocols, online options, helping students when they are out sick or need to stay at home, protocols when we have a COVID-19 case, plans for fall sports, and how the A/B schedule will work.

IMPORTANT LINKS
Recording of June 17th Virtual Town Hall Meeting
Recording of August 6th Virtual Town Hall Meeting
Slides from August 6th Virtual Town Hall Meeting
Follow-up Parent Survey from the August 6th Virtual Town Hall Meeting
Schedule for Phased Reopening, August 10 – September 4th
Bishop Kelly’s Instructional and Operational Handbook for the 2020 – 2021 School Year