Dear Pirate Families:
I hope you and your family had a restful and healthy Thanksgiving. As we enter the final month of the first semester, I want to share some district health updates as well as winter weather information.
Cooper County is experiencing an increase of positive COVID-19 cases and anticipates a continued surge over the next few weeks. As a District, we continue to monitor local health conditions and implement proactive health and safety strategies. Our buildings are sanitized on a regular basis with frequently touched surfaces cleaned and disinfected multiple times per day. Each staff member and
student are required to have his/her temperature checked each morning prior to entering the building, maintain physical distancing when possible, and all staff and students in grades 6th -12th are wearing masks when unable to physically distance. Our students have needed very few reminders to practice health and safety guidelines!
Adequate staffing has been a challenge for school districts this school year. Unfortunately, many
surrounding school districts moved to virtual learning for varying durations due to staff shortages.
While staffing at times has been a challenge for us, our Pirate Team has stepped up and supported
all of our classrooms whenever needed. We sincerely thank all of our staff for their assistance each
day! The District has a tremendous pool of dedicated substitute teachers and even added two full-
time floating substitute positions to assist with classroom coverage. If you are interested in
substituting in our District, we would love to have you join our team! Please complete an application
on our District’s website: www.bpsk12.net
We do not consider the number of positive cases in each building, at this time, significant enough to warrant a change in instructional delivery methods. Currently, we have six students and three staff members in the District who are positive for COVID-19. Our primary focus continues to be maintaining in-person learning for students if it is safely possible to do. If our situation changes, we will provide notification of instructional changes as far in advance as possible.
As winter weather approaches, we need to prepare for how that may also impact our district activities. School closure and/or early dismissal information will be shared through the following methods:
Email;
Text Message;
Social Media—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram;
Radio—KWRT 1370
Television—KMIZ and KOMU
Our school calendar has three “built-in” snow days. Therefore, the first three snow days (if needed) will not be made up or added to the calendar. Additional needed snow days beyond the first three will be made up in the following order: March 11 th , April 5 th , May 24 th . If the District needs to close beyond six days due to a significant winter weather event, the District may utilize virtual learning days. Additional information regarding virtual learning days due to extensive winter weather will be shared in the future as appropriate.
Thank you to each of you for your continued support of our district. Our families have done a phenomenal job of monitoring students’ health and keeping your student(s) home when not feeling well. Your continued efforts directly contribute to the District’s ability to maintain in-person learning.
We wish all of you good health. Again, thank you for sharing your students with us during the week.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sarah Marriott
Superintendent of Schools