Letter from the Principal (March 27)
As you may have heard this week, Governor Baker has extended all school closings in the Commonwealth until Monday, May 4th. We know that this has a significant impact on our B-P families, but this extended closure is necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
DESE Commissioner Jeff Riley held a conference call today with all of the Superintendents in the state. He has shared his guidance to assist schools as they continue to offer remote learning for students. To review the Commissioner’s Remote Learning Recommendations During COVID-19 School Closures, see http://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/emergencyplan/covid19.html.
At Bristol-Plymouth, starting Monday, 3/30/20, is an “A” cycle, and students in grades 10/12 will be joining their shop online classrooms and students in grades 9/11 will be joining their academic online classrooms. Through next week, student learning enrichment opportunities will continue to allow for both the teacher and student to become familiar and engage with each other through this new learning platform for our vocational-technical school.
In following the Commissioner’s guidelines, starting the week of April 6th, and returning to a “B” week cycle, teachers will continue to offer feedback for students’ work but will be assessing their work into a credit/non-credit grading model. The goal for high school students is to ensure that they are making continued progress towards their high school promotion and graduation requirements. Special education personnel will also be making accommodations and modifications where necessary for students, and more information will be forthcoming over the next week. Some of our faculty are currently using multimedia platforms for tutorials, online meeting groups, group conference calls, etc. to conduct learning modules. Please notify your child’s teacher, through email, if you do not consent to your child participating in this type of online forum.
For students who owed attendance make-up time until March 13th when the school closed and were on the list through directed study sessions, the B-P administration has decided to waive any attendance make-up days. However, students who need to make up any missed academic or vocational assignments, prior to March 13th will be held accountable for their work and graded accordingly. In addition and to be clear, beginning April 6th until we can reconvene back to our normal school schedule, all students’ work that is completed through remote learning activities that teachers create will be graded as credit/non-credit towards the remainder of the time that we are out of our school building.
Please continue to view the B-P website at www.bptech.org for new updates. Recently, our school nurses have added resources and information about COVID-19 to their webpage. The guidance department has also created a Google classroom for students to access resources and interact with their counselors. Additionally, our school psychologist has also created a Google classroom where students can check-in and participate in learning new coping strategies during this time of uncertainty.
If your child needs a Chromebook to participate in learning, please email techsupport@bptech.org. While the school is closed, we will make arrangements with parents to deliver a Chromebook for your child to use, along with Comcast’s information on how to access the Internet if you do not have this service.
At this time, there have been no decisions made about senior activities or this year’s graduation ceremony, nor when term 3 will end and when term 4 will begin. All of these decisions will continue to be discussed as the administration receives additional guidelines and directions in the coming weeks. We will continue to stay in touch, and if you have any questions or concerns, please continue to reach out to our B-P teachers, guidance counselors, or administrators.
Lastly, the most important thing is that we stay in touch with each other and stay safe and healthy. If you or anyone in your household has been exposed to COVID-19, please inform our school nurses at bpnurses@bptech.org.
Karen Guenette, B-P Principal, kguenette@bptech.org; Twitter @BPPrincipalKG
For information on Bristol-Plymouth RTS's Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) Project, please visit www.bptech.org/msba 
