Berkeley Public Schools: Update From Superintendent Stephens

Press release from Berkeley Public Schools:

October 23, 2020

Dear BUSD Community,

Two weeks ago, at the Board of Education meeting on October 7, the Board voted to approve a plan to begin reopening our Pre-K and Elementary schools by first establishing on-campus support for small cohorts of students. The decision is a commitment to making progress towards reopening schools while taking a warranted level of caution about the health of our students and staff.

This week, on Wednesday, October 21, the Board of Education met to consider a target reopening date for a PreK and Elementary Hybrid Learning program. After passionate public comment and careful deliberation, the Board voted unanimously to approve the Superintendent’s recommendation to establish January 13 as a target date for reopening PreK and elementary schools. This target date is a realistic assessment of the time it will take to finalize a hybrid model for on-campus learning, reach formal agreements with our labor partners, and complete each element of our BUSD Elementary School Reopening Readiness Dashboard.

The district’s attention is currently turned fully to the task of beginning small group support for some of our PreK and elementary students – what we are calling “Phase 1” of our reopening plans. Given that we are committed in this phase to instructional staff who volunteer for work on our campuses, we anticipate that only a limited number of seats will be available – at least at the start of this program. To ensure that this small-group support program is successful, we will pilot this approach at only four of our BUSD elementary schools: Jefferson, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and the new Oxford site at West Campus. Students in this pilot program will be limited to coming from these four schools, and will be selected by the school’s intervention team. As we assess the success of this pilot, and the availability of staff, we will look to expand this effort.

We will continue to keep you informed about our progress towards reopening our schools.

As always, I am deeply grateful to our parent and guardian community, to our students, and to our staff.

Important Report Card and Parent Conference Schedule Changes

October 30: Non-school day for middle school and high school students
November 20: Non-school day for elementary school students

For elementary school families, please note that due to Distance Learning and the Parent Conferences held in August this school year, the end of the Elementary First Trimester has been moved to November 6, 2020. Parent-Teacher Conferences (where report cards will be distributed) at the Elementary level will be moved to November 16-20. Elementary Report Cards will be a narrative description of the student’s strengths and weaknesses in the academic areas.

Because of this change, October 26-30 will be a regular Distance Learning week with instruction on Friday, October 30 for elementary families. November 20th will be a non-school day for Elementary Students.

Middle and High School staff and students will still have a non-school day on October 30 and a regular distance learning day on November 20. This is consistent with the current published school calendar.

Possible Power Outages Starting on Sunday, October 25

We are monitoring possible power outages in the East Bay that may be starting this Sunday October 25. The PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) website currently indicates some small areas of Berkeley in the Claremont neighborhood may be affected, as well as other locations throughout the East Bay. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Sincerely,

Brent Stephens
Superintendent

This press release was produced by Berkeley Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.