The yearly tradition of open house will continue at Gilmer County Schools but with a few twists.
To limit close interactions between large swaths of people during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, open house at the county’s schools will be limited to students transitioning into a new school building and those brand new to the system.
“As with every decision we’re making right now, we’ve talked about pros and cons of everything we will do to get our students back in school,” superintendent Dr. Shanna Downs said at Monday’s board of education work session.
“Open house is a major community event for us. However, it is a crowded community event with lots of people. It’s never just a student and one parent, it’s everybody (in the family). Some systems are going completely virtual for their open houses. When we discussed that as a leadership team we didn’t feel like it would be a comfortable situation, especially for transition years.”
Transition students who are permitted to attend face-to-face open house include those entering pre-K, kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade.
Those aside from new enrollees and transition students have the option of attending a virtual open house online. Remote conferencing software such as Zoom or Google Meet will be used. Downs said parents will receive an email in the coming days with instructions on how students can meet their new teachers online.
“This way we’re not packing the house every time,” Downs said. “Spreading the open house hours for a longer period of time so that everybody does not come at once (will also limit interactions between large groups). We’ve seen some pretty good success this summer with our end-of-the-year celebrations. We spread those over about four hours.”
Downs noted that teachers in the lower grades have been asked to make telephone contact with incoming students. She mentioned that some teachers in the past have sent welcome letters to students as well.
Incoming freshmen at GHS may drop by the school Saturday, Aug. 1 from 9 a.m. until noon. Students in pre-K, kindergarten and sixth grade may visit their respective schools Wednesday, Aug. 5 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
As of Tuesday’s press deadline, the first day of school is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 7.