Campuses stay closed through end of the year
All schools in Butte County will remain closed to in-person classes through the end of the 20192020 school year.
Butte County Superintendents met remotely Wednesday to discuss the statements from state Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling for schools to close to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Due to the current safety concerns and needs for ongoing social distancing it currently appears that our students will not be able to return to school campuses before the end of the school year,” Thurmond said in a letter to county superintendents.
Butte County Office of Education Superintendent Mary Sakuma called a meeting with school district superintendents to discuss the decision.
“To be clear, the 20192020 school year is not over, it has just transitioned from classroom instruction to distance learning,” Sakuma wrote. “Distance learning is taking place in different ways throughout our county and we encourage you to contact your students’ teachers and administrators for confirmation of specific plans.
“We ask for patience and understanding as we are all quickly transitioning into a new way of teaching and learning to meet the health and safety impacts of COVID-19. It’s challenging to our educators and our families to learn and communicate in a very new world, but working together, we can and will meet this challenge.”
Sakuma added that school districts will next provide information on “how grades, graduation, transcripts, scholarships, summer school, and continued distance learning instruction” will be handled, to all families.
“We will continue with distance learning,” Chico Unified School District Kelly Staley wrote in an email. “As we are just learning that we will not be back this year, we have yet to address how to hold a meaningful graduation ceremony. However, we will be reaching out to seniors and our Chico Community for suggestions.”
“In the meantime, let’s keep moving forward with educating our students via distance learning,” Staley wrote. “There is a good chance we are going to be doing this for a longer period than any of us had hoped. As evidenced by the education provided in just the last two days, regardless of the format, Chico Unified will continue to provide quality instruction to our students.
“This is all brand new, but we will seek input and do the very best we can for our students,” Staley wrote.