We wanted to reach out to the community and give an update regarding the progress we are making toward the planning of the 20-21 school year.
First and foremost, we want to acknowledge the pandemic and the uncertainty of the situation, but we also want to make it clear that as of today our intent is to hold face-to-face school beginning Wednesday, August 5th.
This is the regularly scheduled start date for all Heard County School System schools.
We acknowledge that there are many questions you all may have regarding how this is going to take place, and I want to assure you we will communicate our plans.
Right now, with the ever-changing nature of things, we are not in a hurry to put something out that may be irrelevant within a week’s time.
We will have our correspondence prepared and will publish it on Monday, July 6th for our stakeholders and community.
I can tell you that you can expect Open House to look very different, and your child’s school will be communicating about that in the near future.
I have also received several questions about the Back to School Supply Bash at the covered arena. That is a function that is hosted by the Heard County Community Partnership and I expect they will communicate their plans in the near future.
We will also be sharing a stakeholder survey regarding the reopening of our schools this week on social media. We encourage everyone to participate in the survey so we are able to get a sense of how our community is feeling regarding this matter.
We completed a survey recently with our staff regarding this matter and I wanted to share some results with you.
175 Staff members participated in the survey:
87% of them thought it to be possible or very possible to have face to face instruction
66% of them thought it to be not possible or very inappropriate to begin school like we ended last year
95% of them thought it to be possible or very possible to set up hand sanitizing stations throughout the school
95% of them thought it to be possible or very possible to establish hand washing routines for our children
82% of them thought it to be not possible or very inappropriate to require kids to wear masks
79% of them thought it to be possible or very possible to eliminate shared supplies or supply bins in classrooms
88% of them replied “TRUE” to this statement: I would have no issues sending my child to school on August 5th
I simply share that information to give you a glimpse into what one set of our stakeholders is feeling.
This is the regularly scheduled start date for all Heard County School System schools.