Blackford County Schools Virtual Attendance Option - Parent Update 7.15.2020
As we approach the start of the upcoming school year, we are working to finalize details about our virtual attendance option. We appreciate your patience as this is a new undertaking for Blackford County Schools. The program we are developing will have much greater expectations and involvement than the emergency learning plan put in place during the spring shut down.
We know that some parents have expressed a desire to switch to homeschool during this time, and we encourage you to strongly consider staying connected with BCS through our virtual attendance option to best prepare your student for an eventual return to traditional attendance.
Many of the decisions we are making are dependent upon the number of students registered for the online option. We have asked all parents interested in having their student attend our virtual option to complete online registration by Friday, July 17th.
Based on questions we are receiving we wanted to share the following information:
Parents who select the virtual option may choose to send their students back to traditional classes. Parents may change attendance options only once during the 2020-2021 school year based on the following schedule:
All students any time in the first nine weeks of school.
After the end of the first nine weeks:
Students in grades K-8 may move back to traditional attendance at the end of any nine week grading period .
Students in grade 9-12 may move at the end of the first semester.
All students in the virtual option will be connected to a Blackford County teacher. There will be set times throughout the week during the school day for virtual meetings, check-ins, and lessons with teachers. These “check-ins” will be required for attendance purposes.
There will be instructional software to support student learning that all students will be required to work in daily. There is flexibility in the time of day students may complete these online assessments, but work must be done each day and will be required for attendance purposes.
Students who choose the virtual option may participate in extracurricular activities.
Students in the virtual option will be issued a Chromebook by BCS to complete online assignments.
Parent support is vital for the success of the student in this program. Having clear work times, helping students as they work on assignments, and communicating with the teacher will be critical in this program.
Again, if you are interested in this option, please complete online registration by Friday, July 17th, so we can further work on our planning and communicate more details.
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