December 22, 2020

Dear Parent/Guardian,

We wanted to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to you and your son/daughter for the efforts made on your behalf to make the first part of the year a success. We have been able to remain in an in-person learning environment amidst a pandemic and a cyber-attack. Our staff has been outstanding! They have demonstrated great resiliency and dedication to our students in the first half of the year. We are all in need of a break to relieve some stress and anxiety and be able to rejuvenate for the second half of the school year.

As we look towards January, we will continue to plan for in-person learning to resume on January 4th, 2021. We will also be continuing our two-hour delay schedule on Fridays through the third nine weeks, which ends on March 18th, 2021. There are still many variables at play for in-person learning to continue to happen. First, we must have the staff to operate our district effectively. This includes both certified and classified staff. There may be instances where a grade level or building may have to be shut down temporarily due to a lack of staff. There could be times we do not have bus drivers and we can’t run a bus route(s). Second, we could see a surge locally whereby the health department and/or our governor orders a school shut down and remote learning situation. While we don’t foresee this taking place, it’s a possibility we must plan for.

We still have not heard anything back regarding our cyber-attack but will communicate once we do. It seems almost weekly that we are hearing about cyber-attacks taking place across the state, country and world. Specifically, this has been a problem for K-12 districts everywhere since moving to remote learning. Thankfully, we are almost to a point where our technology in the district is at full capacity. Our technology personnel, along with our teachers, have been working hard to get us back up and running.

Finally, in-person learning is best for students and teachers. We’ve made great efforts to keep this format in place and will continue to strive for this to occur the remainder of the year. Whatever commitment you’ve made for this school year, in person or remote learning, we want to honor that and keep that consistent to allow for the best learning environment for your child. Our principals will have the final say on the status of the students in their buildings.

From all of us at Bath Local Schools….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Rich Dackin