The Elliott County School District will follow the Kentucky Department of Public Health guidelines to determine school closures. The daily incidence map and individual school district and county information is available at https://govstatus.egov.com/kycovid19. Due to Elliott County’s current designation as “orange” on the matrix, we will be following the “remote learning only” recommendation for the upcoming week (September 28-October 2), and will not be requiring teachers to be present in the buildings. As soon as our status returns to “green” or “yellow,” teachers will be working from their classes to ensure that we are ready to welcome students back to in-person instruction.
October 1st and 2nd are not scheduled as student attendance days in this year’s school calendar; therefore we are treating this as a holiday.
Mid-term grades are due October 5. The first grading period ends on October 20th.
Parents Required to Notify Schools of Communicable Disease
Parents are required by law to report to their child’s school if their student has a communicable disease that could place other students and school staff at risk for infection. State public health regulations have been updated to include COVID-19 as one of the communicable diseases that must be reported. The school district is then responsible for reporting all cases to the Department of Public Health’s website so that members of the community of access to the information in a timely fashion.
Option to Return to In-Person Instruction
Families will be given the option to choose to continue full-time remote instruction beginning on October 22nd. Students who choose in-person instruction will report to school on an A/B schedule. Half of the students will come to school on M/T and the other half will come on TH/F. Teachers will be providing direct instruction during in-person classes, and students will continue remote lessons on the days they are not in class. Families must commit to their choice for the entire grading period, October 22 through December 18. (These options may be renewed, changed, or completely different for the third grading period). Masks will be required for all persons, with the exception of mask breaks, eating, and drinking. Wednesdays will be devoted to virtual instruction and sanitizing. Bus drivers will be assigned to help clean the buildings on Wednesdays.
Food Service Changes
Food service delivery will end on October 21st. On October 28th, families who are enrolled in the food service delivery program may choose to continue receiving meals, but they will need to make arrangements for pickup. Families who choose to continue full time remote instruction can pick up 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches for each child in the program. Families who choose to return to school are eligible to pick up 3 breakfasts and 3 lunches per child, as they will be receiving 2 breakfasts and meals at school. Students returning to in-person instruction will pick up a grab and go breakfast and take it to class with them. Lunch will be served in the cafeterias, following social distancing guidelines.
Transportation
Preliminary surveys seem to suggest that most parents who choose the in-person option plan to drive them to and from school, so this may eliminate social distancing issues on the buses. No students are allowed to ride a bus without a mask, and we will be providing masks for drivers to hand out to students who forget theirs. Also, guardians are required to submit verification that they will check their children for COVID symptoms prior to allowing them to ride a bus. Assigned seats are mandatory, as are daily seating charts. Bus drivers will disinfect and sanitize their bus after each run. At the campus in Sandy Hook, there will be three entrances for bus unloading, with intermediate students entering through their cafeteria, middle school students entering the round cafeteria, and high school students entering the front door of the high school. Bus drivers will release students one bus at a time. Student drivers will enter from the gym lobby, and parents will drop off students at the former bus drop off for elementary students. Similar procedures will be followed at the Primary School.
Thank you for your patience and flexibility as we continually adjust our plans to meet the needs of our students as best we can.