Our cafeterias will continue to provide food service as we have in the past. Our cafeteria workers, under the direction of our administration and the Department of Health, will implement safety protocols to ensure safe food preparation and service much like in restaurants today.

When students eat lunch or breakfast, we will be changing our protocols to provide for additional social distancing. Breakfast will be restructured to provide for better social distancing as well as more grab-and-go options.

Middle and high school students will not be limited to eating in the cafeteria. These older students will be given flexibility to eat in other locations designated on campus including outdoors. This will allow the opportunity for students to spread out.

Our elementary students in kindergarten through sixth grade will have their eating schedules and locations changed. Elementary grades will eat in a rotating A/B schedule, using both the cafeteria and other designated eating locations. This will allow us to provide adequate social distancing and sanitization for our students. Food will be available for purchase as has been in the past. Principals will provide additional details upon return to school.

Our cafeterias will prepare and sell food as they have in the past.

If you have an urgent need, or information that you think is imperative to get to Baldwin County Public Schools System leaders, please email News@bcbe.org, or you may contact the system through Facebook by visiting www.Facebook.com/BCBEAlabama.

If you are looking to reach your student’s teacher or administrators, please visit your local school website and find their contact information through the directory listed. You can find your school’s website by visiting www.Bcbe.org and select the school from the upper right corner.

If you are trying to reach one of those departments, please visit www.Bcbe.org where the direct number to that department is listed.

From Superintendent Tyler 11.30.20:

Closure is a big topic. We have specific criteria for what will require the closure of a school, a grade level or even a feeder pattern. Before I get into those details, let me say up front, I have no plans to close the whole system between now and Christmas. If other leaders in positions greater than mine direct me to close the system, I will certainly do so. However, with the staged plans we have in place, I do not see a circumstance in which we would need to close the entire system at any point in the next three weeks.

Our plan developed a certain number of students, employees or support staff that can be absent from each area before we consider a closure. I'm not going to put those numbers out because they are confusing and vary school by school and grade-by-grade level. Those numbers will only trigger a recommendation to me and ultimately, I will make the final determination based on the details and what I believe will be safe for our employees, our school children and our communities.

The first recommendation will be to close a grade level if we see a significant spread within a grade level at a school. The closure will be either 7 or 14 days based upon the information we have available and could be extended. This will allow parents of students who may have been exposed the opportunity to determine if they are sick and whether they should return to school. This will also allow the opportunity to slow down any spread that might have taken place and allow our classrooms to experience further cleaning.

If another grade level within the same school meets the closure criteria during the initial closure, then I will be given a recommendation to close the entire school for an ADDITIONAL 7 to 14 days. So, it is possible we could see a closure longer than 14 days because the second closure would be added on to the initial closure. 

The grade level closure only applies to Pre-K through 8th grade. These schools have done a really good job of segregating their students by grade level but this is not so easily accomplished in high schools. 

For high schools, we will only have the option of a full school closure should I receive a recommendation based on the closure criteria at that school. If I announce a closure of a high school, it will be for the same type 7-to-14-day period as determined by the information given to me. 

There is also the possibility we could skip the grade level closure and go directly to a full school closure. We could find ourselves challenged with finding teachers or we could have such a significant number of students in multiple grade levels that it warrants a full school closure.

We could also see a feeder pattern closure (all schools which come under a high school in a specific area). We could find a high school or middle school impacted by another school closure where we are short on employees as a result of another school in the feeder pattern closing. We could also see a spread within families or a community so great it warrants greater action. 

So, in summary, students in grades Pre-K through 8th could see a grade-by-grade level closure from 7 to 14 days if certain criteria are met. If an additional grade level at the same school meets that criteria during the initial closure, then the entire school will close for another 7 to 14 days. For high school, we could be looking at a full school closure for 7 to 14 days if any grade level meets the closure criteria. We could also skip straight to a full school closure due to exposure, staffing or concerns as well as a full feeder pattern closure for the same reasons. 

We will do our best to provide as much advance notice as possible. There could be circumstances where notification of grade level or school closure could come the evening before a closure but I will do my best to not have that happen. When we close, students or parents will be provided any last-minute instructions from their teacher on how to join the online classroom(s) and will be required to attend their classes online or provide a written note from a parent explaining their lack of participation (such as no internet connection or illness). Students will be graded on their work and will be held accountable for their participation. This will include all students in all grade levels.

From Superintendent Tyler 11.30.20

Under any closure, our students will immediately move to distance learning. Throughout this year, our students have been working on their computers in Google classroom. Throughout the semester, we have asked teachers to do test runs on distance learning. Some teachers pre-record their lesson and students watch it at their desk in case we go to distance learning. All teachers have discussed with their students how to access and join active online learning.  

Should we close, we will move to online instruction the next day. Teachers will be required to continue reporting to work and may bring their younger, school-age, children to their classroom. We will continue serving meals. Take-out meals will be available for all students not at school. Our help desk and tech support line will be accessible for parents and students who need help from home.

Students will have active classes. They will be directed in their studies. Elementary students will have a very structured online classroom during the day with a lunch break and then scheduled tutoring or small group at other times. Secondary students will continue their bell schedule routine, online - class by class. You will get more information about this from your local school principal and teachers when appropriate. 

If students have questions about Google classroom please get with their teacher and figure out what they might have missed.

From Superintendent Tyler 11.30.20: 

At this time, I am considering delaying the students’ physical return to school until Monday, January 11th. I believe it is important for us to have a good break after Christmas and the New Year to ensure we do not bring the virus back into our buildings and prevent some type of start-stop-start-stop back-to-school crisis.

Please note that I said we would be delaying the students’ PHYSICAL return. Even though children may not be in the building, they will be attending classes online for that week. Teachers will be providing online instruction, from our school buildings, on the same structured schedule I described above for a school's closure. We will serve meals, including to-go options for pick up. We will open our help desks for at home technical support. Everything will be the same as a closure detailed above. 

Parents, please do not listen to rumors. It used to be funny when I had someone tell me something I was supposed to have said but didn't. It's not funny to me these days because I know how many of you panic and worry. I'm going to communicate with you directly and immediately if there is any information you need. If we announce a school closure or change any of these protocols, you will hear it from me immediately. It won't leak out or spread. There are less than four people who would even know it's a possibility. 

(to read the complete Superintendent Message from 11.3.20 please click here: https://www.bcbe.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=22119)  

The student’s absences will be excused and they will be able to continue to their academic work from home, digitally, under our distance learning plan as outlined.

Should a teacher, staff member or nurse fall sick and be absent from school we have identified over 1,500 active substitutes currently on our roster. We have also been hiring additional teachers throughout the summer and have just recently opened additional positions to ensure we are well supplied with more excellent teachers to join our already excellent team of instructors.

Of course, but we’ve been here. We’ve had flu outbreaks and holiday breaks where we didn’t have enough substitute coverage. We have plans at each school level to deal with that and our experience shows we can handle these adjustments.

All of our classes in traditional school are being tracked digitally with your child. Our teachers and administrators are being required to complete significant professional development before starting school. This ensures they are up to speed on all of our new digital requirements for distance learning. We are prepared to switch our traditional students immediately to distance learning as a whole system, as an individual school or on a student by student basis as a result of sickness. All of their work, assignments, lessons and studies are posted and will be available digitally on Google Classroom each day. As of the first day of school, we are prepared make this move at any moment and without further preparation.