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The Bartlesville Public School District will transition to district-wide distance learning after Saturday, Dec. 12th.

BPS Executive Director of Technology & Commications, Granger Meador, said the district will move to a virtual platform for academic instruction due to the observed and potential impacts on statewide adult ICU bed availability caused by the coronavirus pandemic. He said they'll proceed with distance learning for the remainder of the semester.

The fall semester is expected to end on Friday, Dec. 18th, for Christmas Break. Meador said the move was not the district's preferred action, nor is it where they want to be, but the district felt compelled by the situation with the state's hospital system to make the move to distance learning. He said they hope that people do their part to help hospitals get into better shape and not be overloaded so the district can go back to in-person instruction, which is more effective for most students.

Meador said they've been looking at the hospital situation in the district to determine whether or not to resume with in-person instruction for the remainder of the semester or not. He said that Bartlesville Schools has done quite well internally to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in each school site and into the community.

When looking at the local hospital situation, Meador said they were first looking at what are called "hospital tiers" to determine if the hospitals had entered Tier Four. The fourth tier is the highest tier hospitals in the region can enter into. Meador said if the hospitals in the region had entered Tier Four, they would've shut down the schools sooner and reverted to distance learning.

However, Meador said the district knows the limitations of the "Hospital Tier Plan" in that it is not as responsive to the real situation they're experiencing. He said they're now taking a look at the adult ICU bed availability and ran a trendline on it. The results came back to the district who expressed sufficient concern, which is why they decided that it was time to schedule a distance learning period.

Therefore, Meador said the shift to distance learning is based on community conditions regarding COVID-19, not school conditions regarding COVID-19. Meador said students will be taking classes virtually while teachers and staff will be at school. He said they hope this will make for a better distance learning experience for students and teachers. He said teachers will have full access to school resources and school internet to make for a distance learning experience for students using their Chromebooks at home.

Elementary students do not have take home Chromebooks like middle and high school students do. Because of this, Meador said elementary school teachers will be issuing Chromebooks and chargers on Thursday, Dec. 10th. He said they'll be able to use this technology on Friday, Dec. 11th, which was already scheduled to be a distance learning day, and the following week before Christmas Break.

During distance learning, Bartlesville Public Schools will still have meal service delivery through its bus system. Meador said the district will send out more information regarding meals later in the week. He said they may be able to provide a hot meal option, which is something the district wasn't able to do when they were having students work completely online earlier in the year.

The Bartlesville Public Schools District would like to resume in-person classes on its originally scheduled start date for the spring semester, which is Monday, Jan. 4th, 2021. In order for BPS to return to the classroom on that date, Meador said the hospital situation will need to improve and that community spread of COVID-19 will need to be reduced. He said the following cannot occur if the district wishes to return to in-person classes on Monday, Jan. 4th, 2021:

• There cannot be a community spread of COVID-19 while the area is in the "red zone" or high risk level, which entails a spread of 50 cases per 100,000 people
• Hospitals in the Bartlesville and Tulsa region cannot be in Tier Four status

Meador said it is important to Bartlesville Public Schools that the region's hospitals not enter Tier Four and remain in that position. He said it is also important to the district that community spread of the virus not remain at a high rate.

Lastly, Meador said extracurricular activities, including spectator sports, assemblies, and performances, will be suspended beginning on Sunday, Dec. 13th, until further notice. Meador said the district will not have any extracurricular activities that week. If it is not appropriate in terms of the hospital situation for kids to be in school, Meador said it is probably not appropriate for them to have extracurricular events.