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Back to school plans for Swain County

Back to school plans for Swain County

Swain County will be operating this fall under a hybrid of in-person and remote learning. Parents can choose Plan B, which includes in-person instruction and remote learning or Plan C, which is entirely remote learning. 

Plan B will include two days of in-person instruction with a teacher inside the classroom while the other three days will be spent doing remote instruction that is directly tied into class instruction, subject matter and the classroom teacher. 

Students who choose Plan B will be split into two groups — A group and B group. Group A will attend classes Monday and Tuesday and Group B will attend Thursday and Friday while everyone will use remote learning on Wednesdays. When determining which students are in which group, the school system will place siblings together and also consider bus routing and teacher loads when dividing them up. 

Plan C includes remote learning five days a week. Those students will have someone at their school who will contact them on a regular basis and will have access to subject matter teachers. Swain County has partnered with Edmentum to provide the remote learning platform for K-12 students. 

Parents dropping off students will have to answer three screening questions while students have their temperature taken in the vehicle every day. Bus riders will also be screening when they get off the bus. Students who have a temperature higher than 100.4 will not be allowed to attend school. Bussed students will be placed in a safe room by themselves or socially distanced until a parent arrives to pick them up. 

Everyone will be required to wear a face covering. Students will be given breaks where they can remove their masks for brief periods of time. Wherever possible, students will remain 6 feet apart. 

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Parents may choose to switch their student from Plan B to Plan C before the end of the semester by contacting their child’s school, but students can’t switch from Plan C to Plan B until the end of the semester because teacher classroom sizes and bus loads will already be set. Seating on buses will be one student per seat. Food from the cafeteria will be served to students in their classrooms. 

Plan A, which includes five days of in-person instruction, will only be an option when the governor’s restrictions are changed or lifted.