As the 2020-2021 school year is fast approaching, Bakersfield City School District held a town hall tonight to discuss their “Return to School Roadmap” with parents and community members.
Last Tuesday board members voted to begin the school year with distance learning at least for the first quarter, and Wednesday night the district went into detail as to what this will look like.
Mark Luque, Deputy Superintendent of Bakersfield City School District held a zoom meeting Wednesday night for parents and students to address what BCSD’s schedule will look like starting in the fall. Luque said, “I certainly hope that all of us can work together to get our kids back to school sooner than later, but again until our numbers are in a place that allows us to, we are going to make the very best of the current situation.”
The district says all students are eligible to receive both a chrome book device and a hot spot.
And Director of Curriculum, Christine Chapman, says the instructional schedule will include both asynchronous and synchronous learning time. Chapman says, “Synchronous is when students and teachers are engaged and working together through our two platforms that we are using this fall- Google Classroom and Zoom.”
Chapman says if a student does not log in to an instructional period that day.. That will be considered an absence.
And although it hasn’t been approved by the board, BCSD is working to move their first day back to August 17th so that students can individually come to school for an in-person orientation to meet their teacher from August 12th through August 14th. Luque says, “we will allow 4 students and one parent to come to school at a time for a 45-minute block to come to school and meet their teacher.”
BCSD will have two more town hall meetings via zoom prior to the start of school. These will be held on July 29th from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. and on August 5th from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. There they will speak on health and safety protocols and mental health support.
