All Bibb County Schools switch to asynchronous learning

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Bibb County School District (BCSD) announced Tuesday that all Bibb County Schools will be switched to asynchronous learning for 2 weeks beginning Tuesday September 7, 2021.

According to the announcement, students are scheduled to return to school for in-person learning on Monday September 20, 2021. Students will receive electronic devices and handouts and learn how to log in for assignments before going home for the transition.

BCSD said the decision was made after reviewing the spread of COVID-19 within the Bibb community as well as the number of cases in school in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the area.

Asynchronous learning will involve teachers recording and posting lessons from their classroom, but not teaching live. students will be expected to login to an app with the school online and complete assignments posted by their teachers, as well as handouts given before the break. Students must continue going to school in-person before the shift officially begins on September 7, and will be marked absent if they don’t attend in the days before that.

Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones had this to say in the release:

I am very confident our schools are safe. I believe the measures we put in place with requiring masks, socially distancing with the distance the CDC recommends, and frequent handwashing all help keep us safe,” and “However, I also recognize community spread is very high; and I believe in some cases the students are bringing COVID-19 into the schools, and maybe it is spreading that way. Because of that and because Labor Day is about to occur, and because we know our number of COVID-19 positive cases increases over weekends, we are going to take the next two weeks to pause in-person learning and hopefully ensure that when students return, our schools will still be safe.”

Some safety protocols in place at Bibb Schools include administrators monitoring COVID-19 data daily by school, grade, and classroom level, students and staff being required to wear masks, installed ionization systems to purify the air and kill germs, touchless water fountains, and more.