Dear BK Parents,
As mentioned in
Tuesday’s Just in Time, we are continuing to make great progress on the three objectives we set out to work on when we paused our on campus learning and moved to virtual learning for this week:
- Provide adequate time for the improved physical health of our student body while mitigating further spread of all illnesses (flu, colds, COVID, etc.)
- Provide adequate time and focus on adapting and improving current instructional and operational plans
- Build in time to fix the water main issue that needs to be addressed and will necessitate closure of our school buildings
We will provide more details of the decisions we have made, the rationale behind them, and what the new protocols mean to our students, faculty/staff and parents tomorrow afternoon in BK Alive. However, since the decisions we have taken involve some schedule changes for next week, we wanted to get this Just in Time out to you right away and to let you know how to plan for next week.
Let’s start with Monday. While fixing the water pipe issues on our end, we discovered that there are also leaks on the Suez Water side of the main water line and they need to completely tear out their pipes, meters and valves. This work will not be completed until Monday, so we will continue with virtual learning on Monday for all students.
Next, we have made the decision to do what we did back in August and early September – have a phased in approach of the planned changes so we can work out any issues with a smaller number of students on campus. The changes we will be implementing are in three areas:
- Refining our remote learning instructional plans in our instructional model, given we will likely see significant absences through the next four to six months
- Changes to our lunch protocols and bell schedule with the advent of cold weather and the goal to reduce potential spread
- Adopting and implementing some new “return to school” protocols.
In addition, this approach allows those students that are ill, in quarantine, or out for any reason an additional week of partial online learning before we revert back to our face to face instructional model. On campus, in person learning remains our priority and our primary instructional model, as we strongly believe that is the best learning model and we have shown in our first 9 weeks of school that we can execute it successfully during this pandemic.
Thus, we will be reimplementing, for one week, the alternate days A/B schedule for the week of October 19th – 23rd: Tuesday/Wednesday, Juniors/Seniors will be on campus and Freshman/Sophomores online. Thursday/Friday, it flips such that Freshman/Sophomore on campus, Juniors/Seniors online. We fully intend and expect to have all students on campus starting on Monday, October 26th.
Thank you once again for all you have done in partnership with us to make the first nine weeks of school so successful in most every way. Thank you also for your support and understanding of the plan we are executing this week and next. We believe this brief pause from our instructional model of in-person learning has given us the time we needed to build additional strength as a school and community to move forward throughout the remainder of this challenging school year.
God bless,
Rich Raimondi, President
Mike Caldwell, Principal
All together, here is the schedule for next week:
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Monday, October 19th – B Day
9:15 AM start
Fully Online for ALL Grade Levels
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Tuesday, October 20th – A Day
8:15 AM start
Juniors and Seniors on campus
Freshmen and Sophomores online
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Wednesday, October 21st – B Day
9:15 AM start
Juniors and Seniors on campus
Freshmen and Sophomores online
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Thursday, October 22nd – A Day
8:15 AM start
Freshmen and Sophomores on campus
Juniors and Seniors online
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Friday, October 23rd – B Day
9:15 AM start
Freshmen and Sophomores on campus
Juniors and Seniors online
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