The following is the opening of a four-page letter from Greg Denecker, Bluffton school superintendent, concerning the opening of the 2020-21 school year.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work toward the opening of our schools on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020!  

As you know, we are offering both in-person and remote learning platforms for our students this year and will strive to maintain continuity across these two modes of delivery.  

Our goal is always to provide high quality education; this is a point of pride in our district and in our community.  

To that end, we will be adjusting the school week to accommodate the dual platform approach:
• students will attend school four days per week (Monday through Thursday), 
• and on Fridays, all students will learn remotely.

Our teachers will continue to be physically at the school Monday through Friday. However, designating Friday as an asynchronous remote learning day will allow teachers the opportunity to provide more targeted instruction to those who may need additional help.

Additionally, teachers will be working on recordings, lesson plans, Zooming with students who have questions or require additional assistance, and posting assignments for the week to come.  

We realize this schedule will put a burden on some families, and we apologize for that.  However, we believe this is the best way for us to provide instruction at a high level in both platforms.  

We will evaluate this arrangement at the end of the first nine weeks (October 30) and decide if we will continue with this weekly schedule for the rest of the semester.  

The four-day in-person week will begin with the first week of classes on Aug. 31, which means that Friday, Sept. 4 will be the first remote learning day, followed by each Friday as a remote learning day until Oct. 30.  

Please know our goal is to be as flexible as possible when it comes to whether your child will be taught in person or in a remote learning setting. However, we ask that your requests are kept within reason; it is not possible to accommodate requests for a student to move back and forth between modes of delivery on a regular basis. Please contact the appropriate office if you need to make a change in the mode of instruction.  

The rest of this letter includes several updates, along with information from previous letters. 

The entire letter, with four pages of information, is posted as an attachment at the bottom of this story.