Parents,
Baldwin County Public Schools will be closed for a teacher workday next Friday, March 5. I know this comes as a sudden and unpleasant surprise to many and I apologize for the short notice. I promise you I have worked very hard to avoid this. I respect your time and your need to work and maintain your family schedules. While closing school on Friday is not my preference, it is the best choice to keep our schools open and operating through the end of the academic year.
We have been working closely with USA Health to vaccinate our teachers and employees to prevent any future school closures as a result of COVID-19. The vaccination schedule requires a second vaccination within a very specific amount of time. We have a small window of only a few days to complete this process. This second vaccination can also bring about side-effects which could cause significant employee absences from school resulting in unmanageable class and school closures.
As a result, I have made the decision, in everyone's best interest, to close school next Friday so that we can address everyone's second and final vaccination in one day. This will give our staff the opportunity to recover from any vaccination side effects without impacting your children.
The good news is this second vaccination will hopefully allow us to complete this academic school year without any additional school closures as a result of COVID-19! Hallelujah!
Since the beginning of this pandemic, it has been my hope to keep our schools open, create as much normalcy as possible and provide the education you expect for your children. As we watch the news about school systems across the country starting in-person learning, I am humbled that Baldwin County Public Schools has been a leader on how to do this safely and successfully. Over the last couple of weeks, we have received requests from school systems across the country, congressmen and other elected officials, asking for advice and information on how Baldwin County Public Schools started and maintained in person instruction so successfully.
Our success is a result of your partnership with our 4,000 employees. Together, we have kept our schools open and positioned our kids to be ahead of the millions across the country who are behind schedule and losing academic progress. Our work together also kept our community working and our economy strong. That is the focus we will keep going into the summer!
Finally, we will NOT be doing distance learning on this day. The smaller class sizes and cooperation of our students have us a little ahead of schedule on our academic pacing guides. Our academic team feels very comfortable about where we are and how much we have left to cover in the school year. When we return, we will close out the third quarter and begin a period of review and testing.
Again, I apologize for the short notice. Please know that I respect your time and need to work, and if there were another way to do this, I would have done such. Thank you in advance for your understanding.
As always, thank you so very much for trusting us with your children. Please enjoy the good weather and stay safe.
Eddie Tyler,
Superintendent
