USD 235 Parents/Guardians:
Thursday afternoon most of us received news that the Bourbon County Health Department issued a Stay At Home Order that will go into effect at 11:59 PM on Friday, March 27. After learning of this order I contacted Rebecca Johnson, Health Officer of Bourbon County.
I contacted Rebecca Johnson for clarification on her order and what it means for Uniontown USD 235. As a former English/Journalism major, I want to remind all of us to not just read the headline…but read the entire article. An analogy, but an important one during these times.
Both school districts in Bourbon County (USD 234 Fort Scott and USD 235 Uniontown) have been given permission by the Bourbon County Health Dept. to proceed with Food Service plans for the week of March 30 – April 3. For Uniontown USD 235 that means serving meals on both Tuesday, March 31 and Thursday, April 2.
Please see our Facebook post on the morning of March 27 for more details or go to the following link on our website. https://www.uniontown235.org/article/221038?org=uniontown-usd-235. If you wish to participate in the meals you will need to call Michelle DeMott. Details are in the link above.
I will continue to communicate with the Bourbon County Health Department as it relates to the Stay At Home Order. I will communicate with all of you what I find out in regard to how it impacts our school community.
I want to relay some new information as it relates to Uniontown USD 235. This information was approved by Rebecca Johnson, Bourbon County Health Officer this afternoon.
Both the JH/HS and WBE will have an opportunity for students to pick up their personal belongings from school on Tuesday, March 31. The JH/HS plan may be reviewed at this link: https://www.uniontown235.org/article/221031?org=uniontown-usd-235 The WBE plan may be reviewed at this link: https://www.uniontown235.org/article/221156?org=uniontown-usd-235. Again, both of the plans were approved by Bourbon County Health Department Officer, Rebecca Johnson.
I will continue to communicate frequently with our students, parents, and patrons of Uniontown USD 235 to make you aware of district plans going forward. I know these posts will not answer every question, but we are doing our best to get this information out to everyone through multiple outlets. Not everyone in our district has access to the internet and may not have a social media account on either Facebook or Twitter. If you know of people in this category, please help us get information to them or email me at bhoward@uniontown235.org and we will make sure to get this information in their hands.
At this time, we have no immediate plans to bring students back into our buildings in small group settings. We will be proceeding in planning our Continuous Learning Plan during March 30 through April 3 with our staff by focusing on 1) Online learning opportunities using video conferencing and 2) Packet learning. We will provide more details to our parents/guardians when the plan is created. We will not be ready to put our plan in place until Monday, April 6, at the earliest. We will ease into our plan.
We appreciate your willingness to work together to make this the best experience possible for your child(ren).
Our Administration Team met with our Technology Staff on Friday, March 27 to prepare for working with all of our teachers beginning on Monday, March 30.
The week of Monday, March 30 through April 3 our district staff will be hard at work to create the USD 235 Continuous Learning Plan.
Our Administration team thoughts for the USD 235 Continuous Learning Plan still are:
- We will be focusing on essential learning and essential outcomes for students – “Less is More”.
- We will be emphasizing relationships in this new learning environment.
- Our decisions must support all populations of students.
- We will establish a consistent and agreed upon framework of expectations, communication models and practices that all stakeholders share.
- We will be using 1-2 platforms of learning for all students. We simply can’t have every person using their own platforms. This would be confusing for students and parents alike.
- The guidance we received has recommendations on time for students to spend learning each day. We will be using these recommendations. They are 30 minutes for Pre-K; 45 minutes for KG and 1st grade; 60 minutes for 2nd and 3rd grade; 90 minutes for 4th and 5th grade; and 30 minutes per teacher in 6th through 12th grade. (3 hours maximum in a day.) These will be maximum minutes and doesn’t mean that it will even be daily.
- Continuous Learning will not be hours of screen time for students and parents.
- We will not just be making copies of worksheets and sending them home. It will involve a combination of A) Online Learning and B) Packet Learning for students who do not have reliable internet connection.
- We are continuing to work with Craw-Kan to find different places around our districts for Hot Spots. We will post the addresses of these Hot Spot locations as they are made available.
Be safe Eagles!
Thank you and God Bless,
Bret Howard, Superintendent Uniontown USD 235