North Michigan News

Boyne City Public Schools issued the following announcement on July 13.

I wanted to send you a midsummer update with some important information regarding the start of the school year.    

Unlike last summer, we know a great deal more about how COVID-19 is spread and how to protect students, staff, and the community from the most harmful effects of this virus.  We will continue to work in partnership with the Health Department of Northwest Michigan in determining precautions to keep everyone safe and healthy.  Importantly, the district reserves the ability to immediately change and implement protocols based on local circumstances (if necessary). 

Below are the protocols we currently intend to use for the start of the 2021-2022 school year, if circumstances related to COVID-19 in our community and sub-groups remain similar to our current status:

• Cohorts 
  • Continue to have organized cohorts at the elementary school to reduce the effects of positive COVID-19 cases.  
  • High school and middle school will start the year without assigned seating at lunch.
• Cleaning 
  • Continue to require classroom cleaning of desks, but will modify plans from cleaning between classes to twice per day.  
  • We will modify our cleaning schedule for the common areas.
• Face Coverings 
  • We will start the year with no masking requirements district-wide.  However, we respect the staff and students who personally choose to mask and will work to pursue a positive culture for those who continue to mask.  
  • Students and staff will be required to have personal masks available for use when required by the administration.
• Quarantine 
  • Continue with the practice adopted by the BCPS Board of Education at the end of the last school year.  A positive student quarantines for 10 days (assuming they are symptom-free prior to return). 
    • A close contact who is not vaccinated, defined as a close contact with a COVID-19 positive person within three feet in a classroom setting or six feet in other indoor settings, for more than fifteen cumulative minutes, will quarantine for 10 days unless they have a negative test result on day seven and are symptom-free. 
    • A vaccinated student who is in close contact with a COVID-19 positive individual, can provide proof of being vaccinated, AND is not showing symptoms will not be required to quarantine. 
  • To effectively keep students in-person for their education and for the ability to participate in athletics/band/drama, getting students vaccinated is very important.
• Testing 
  • There is no required COVID-19 testing required by the district or MHSAA at this time
• Social Distancing 
  • Continue efforts to keep students distanced when possible.  
  • We will continue to have one additional bus run to lower the number of students per bus to avoid close contact.
• Virtual Options 
  • Continue our fully virtual learning options for K-12 families.  We feel strongly that in-person education is the best learning option for a majority of students.  There are a few cases where our fully virtual option is a better fit to engage some learners.  For those families, we are staffed to provide a BCPS teacher as the coordinator and mentor for virtual learning for grades K-8. 

Let me emphasize, the ability to add layers of protective measures is an important part of our strategy for this year. Students, parents, and staff are being asked to accept the fact that additional measures may be mandated by the administration if warranted.  I remain optimistic that with increasing vaccination rates and a more comprehensive understanding of how COVID-19 spreads, this year will resemble a more traditional year.  

A great strength of our school community has been the ability to adapt and improve in adverse conditions. This year will be no different. Once again, we will work together to successfully reopen schools in the fall with continued success for all students for the entire 2021-2022 school year.

Original source can be found here.