The Lincoln County School Board met Monday to discuss upcoming guidelines for the 2020-2021 school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
During its regularly scheduled meeting, guidelines were discussed for the upcoming school year. The board will make a decision Wednesday on how the district will proceed.
“We’re talking about some hybrid options,” Superintendent David Martin said.
The board members discussed testing certain strategies for the first day of school, such as allowing half of the students to attend Aug. 6 and the other half attend Aug. 7.
Any decision the board makes regarding the schools can be overridden by the state department of education, but Martin said it was important to already have a plan in place.
“No matter what it is, we have to be ready to adjust,” Martin said.
The school district has ordered face shields for teachers to have along with their masks. The district also ordered 4,000 face masks to be evenly distributed among the schools for all campuses and buses.
As of now, state testing will still occur during the 2020-2021 school year. The curriculum across the district will reflect that.
“Third graders will still need to take their test and students in high school will still need to pass all four state tests to graduate,” Martin said.
As for attendance, if a student becomes infected with the coronavirus, they will still be counted present if they are able to participate in distance learning.
In order to keep all four campuses clean, the option of hiring one additional custodian for each campus was discussed.
A final decision will be made July 22 by the school board.

 

Story by Gracie Byrne