Bluffton schools will reopen for 2020-21 on Monday, Aug. 31, and reopening plans are posted on the school's website. The information on the website follows below.
Also attached at the bottom of this story is a five-page "Allen County Schools Common Reopening Agreement." It addresses:
• When a student/staff member has been diagnosed with covid-19
• Student and staff health issues not related to covid-19
• Food services
• Classroom occupancy
• Remote learning
• Visitors/volunteers/parties/field trips
• Transportation
• Recess
Specific plans to Bluffton schools reopening follow:
First, I want to thank you for your understanding and patience as we have been preparing for this school year.
At the end of this letter you will find the Allen County Schools Common Reopening Agreement. While we know that not everyone will agree with every single item in this document, the Allen County superintendents under the guidance of the Allen County Health Department have tried to make the best decisions for our students regarding their learning environment.
There are a few items in addition to those contained in the Allen County Schools Common Reopening Agreement that we will be implementing to start the school year. These are as follows:
• We ask our parents or students (age appropriate) to take student temperatures before students come to school.
• In addition, sometime in the first 30 minutes of school, each teacher will be taking the temperature of all their students via a touchless forehead thermometer.
• Face masks are required to be worn during transport on all of our busses, as it is virtually impossible for us to transport while maintaining any type of real social distancing.
• If your child does not need to ride the bus this year, we would appreciate your help in providing transportation; however, we also understand if that is not possible for your family. As always, we are happy to transport students to and from school under the guidelines just described.
• We highly encourage all our 3rd-12th grade students to wear face masks.
• Face masks will be required in the hallways of the high school and middle school buildings as students enter and exit the school and change from one class period to the next.
Updated school website
In other news, we have updated our website platform; however, the url remains the same: www.blufftonschools.org. Since the platform is new, the first few times you use the site you may need to type in the entire www.blufftonschools.org url.
On our website, you will find a Google Form where you can indicate if you are choosing an online learning option for your child/ren this fall. If you are choosing the online option, please make this indication by July 20.
There is no need to fill out the form if your child/ren will be attending school in the traditional face-to-face setting. The form is being used for planning purposes.
Rest assured that even after that July 20 deadline, you will still have the ability to change your mind regarding your child/ren’s mode of educational delivery.
We just need to get a sense of how many students may be learning in an online environment versus a face-to-face one.
Overall, the online learning option will be more rigorous than it was in the spring as our goal is to provide a commensurate learning experience between the online setting and the face-to-face setting.
Please call me if you ever have any questions or concerns. We eagerly anticipate our students coming back to Bluffton Schools this August in whatever fashion is most appropriate and safe for students and for their care-givers.
We look forward to working together—as always—to provide students with the best education possible.
