August 2020
Dear Parents,
First, let me thank you for your support and understanding as we, as a nation and community, responded to the unexpected invasion of COVID-19 last March. I am extremely proud of the way our BCS students, parents, employees, and community leaders handled the demands we were faced with to protect everyone as we continued to educate and feed our students during the most unusual of circumstances.
As you are aware, there continues to be concerns and questions related to how schools plan to reopen. While we are in the business of educating, our top priority is the safety of our students and our employees. We have been working diligently on our BCS Re-entry plan. With factors and information changing daily, it has made some things more complicated than others, but be assured we are being proactive. BCS is prepared to continue the education of our students and keep them safe even with the ever-changing circumstances.
We have been gathering input from parents, employees, community members, administrators, state leaders, and the NM Public Education Department, via surveys, meetings and committees. Administrators and department leaders have been planning for increased safety procedures that will be taken at every location. Based on the re-entry requirements set by the Public Education Department, we will be starting school using two different methods.
- Remote Learning - Beginning August 31st, all grade levels will start remote learning using Schoology. Parent training will be set up before the beginning of school. All school sites have done their own planning for this. Please contact your school if they have not already reached out to you. We will have some devices available to check out however, unfortunately we will not be able to put a device in the hand of every student. It is our desire to accommodate families in need of obtaining a device for home use. Devices have been ordered but are on backorder. As you can imagine the entire country is attempting to purchase devices.
- Hybrid Plan- Per the Governor’s Executive Order school may begin on September 8th for PreK – 6th grade followed by 7th-8th grade in the middle of September and 9th-12th grade the beginning of October, to limit the number of people in groups, we have adopted the Hybrid plan which is a combination of remote and face-to-face instruction with increased safety and disinfecting measures. You will be contacted by your school with the information of which Hybrid Plan you are on, A or B.
- Full Remote Learning Plan- All students electing Remote learning will participate in the learning of new material, continued standard pacing, interactive lessons, graded assignments, and assessments. This would be enacted for all students if the Governor’s Executive Order closed schools again due to health concerns. (If there is outbreaks of COVID-19 in specific schools, we may enact individual school closures instead of district-wide closures.)
I encourage all parents to frequently visit our webpage and follow our social media for up-to-date and accurate information. There are many false rumors being disseminated which leads to unnecessary confusion. Our priority is to keep everyone safe while not making life more difficult for our parents. Each family situation is uniquely different. We fully understand your varied concerns about health and safety, distance learning, the importance of face-to-face instruction, parents needing to work, and all of the other unexpected consequences of not being in school or being in school in a traditional method. If for some reason, we are unable to be in a traditional school environment, our goal is to find the best way to have our students in our buildings as safely and as frequently as possible ensuring the health and well-being of all.
***As we move forward, we are also taking into consideration that we have medically compromised students. Parents of students with a higher risk of severe illness may contact their school administration, if needed, before the Re-entry plan is started.
As we continue the BCS Re-entry planning process, your school will keep you updated. Thank you for your continued support, patience and positivity as we strive to do what is best for ALL our students and employees during these challenging times.
Serving you,
Diane Vallejos
Superintendent of Education Belen Consolidated Schools