The School Board met on Wednesday, November 11, 2020. Superintendent Carlsen's and Assistant Superintendent Keri Greener's summary notes are attached. The actual minutes will be posted as soon as they are approved at the next School Board meeting.

http://www.besd.net/documents/district/board follow up/111120.pdf

The Pandemic has caused a lot of stress and concern.  As Box Elder School District started school this past August, we were hopeful we could start and maintain a regular five-day schedule.  Covid-19 protocols require students or an employee to quarantine because of exposure, or a student or employee is to stay in isolation because of a positive case. These protocols have put a lot of pressure on our teachers.  We have been asking teachers to keep up with their face to face in-person classrooms and help their students who are quarantined, isolated, or because they have stayed home like we have asked them when they are sick.  There is not enough time in the school day schedule for the teachers to keep up with this extra task.  Many of the state's school districts have already implemented a shortened day for students to deal with this issue. This shortened day leaves teachers time to help the students who are quarantined or in isolation keep up.

Starting on Thursday, October 29, 2020, Box Elder School District will start school one hour later in the morning than we have been for the past two months.  This will be for all K-12 students.  For preschool and Kindergarten, we are asking you to check with your schools for bus arrival and departure times.  For the past two months, we have had late start and early out on Wednesdays.  We will eliminate the early out on those Wednesdays.  So the schedule will be the same all five days.  One hour late start and school dismissal at the same time. This will mean bus schedules will be one hour later in the morning.  If there is a change, we will have your school or transportation alert you of that change.

We will evaluate this schedule's effectiveness and the number of Covid-19 cases, quarantines, and the number of students staying home when sick every three to four weeks.  In this particular case, we will look at those numbers as Thanksgiving break approaches and then again as Christmas break approaches.  Once the numbers have subsided, we will return to our full schedule.

We know this will cause families difficulties with child care, and we are very sorry for those challenges.  We feel strongly we have to take these measures to ensure our excellent teaching staff's health and effectiveness.  Thank you in advance for your efforts to understand and support this critical issue.

Superintendent, Steve Carlsen

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qMytgVSA17nJKkukQE6HRnDdVlMKknx970ynvowsDas/edit?usp=sharing