The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District will begin the 2020-21 school year virtually on Aug. 6.
The district’s board approved its reopening plan and calendar at a special called meeting earlier this month. Dr. Mary Brown, the district’s superintendent, added, “Any changes due to COVID-19 will be made to this plan as needed.”
According to the plans, a hybrid schedule with a combination of face-to-face and distance learning is tentatively set to start on Sept. 8. Parents, however, will have the option to sign their children up for either schedule — the hybrid or distance learning — through the district’s website. Brown said if parents sign up for virtual learning and then later would like to swap for the hybrid learning, they will be able to do so.
Attendance will be checked every class period for both hybrid and virtual learning.
“Students who select the virtual option are expected to complete all classwork,” Brown said. “And the students who choose the virtual option are held to the same expectation for work submission and grading guidelines as the hybrid students.”
Brown also said that if the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise, the district will edit the schedule to see when it is safe to reopen the schools for the hybrid learning.
With the hybrid schedule, students in grades K-3 will be attending in-person classes Monday through Thursday with virtual classes Friday. Students in grades 4-12 will alternate two days of in-person and two days of virtual classes with Friday being virtual for all.
The hybrid schedule is separated into two day blocks labeled A and B. The instruction begins at different times for each block; A starts at 7:45 a.m. with dismissal at 12:30 p.m., and B starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m.
After the Thanksgiving holiday break, all students will go back to all virtual learning. They will return to the hybrid schedule after spring break on March 15.
Extracurricular activities, such as physical education and band, will be done through virtual learning.
The school board asks students to not bring an abundance of supplies and instead just bring their school-provided Chromebooks, paper and pencils.
Rather than spending a lot of money on school supplies this year, Brown encourages parents to “just take $15 and pay the Chromebook insurance fee.”
Along with the modified school schedule, there will be a change in procedure regarding buses. Bus monitors will be added to take the temperatures of each student who boards.
The buses will be loaded back to front with each student seated one seat apart. In total, each bus will have 12 students, one driver and one monitor, according to Talece Hudson, chief of transportation and warehouse service for the school district.
Face masks will be required, and disposable masks will be available if a child needs one.
• Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. Twitter: @AdamBakst_GWCW
