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Bartlesville Public Schools added three all-district Distance Learning days to the 2020-2021 Academic Year Calendar earlier in the month.

Bartlesville Superintendent Chuck McCauley said District students will have three additional all-district Distance / Virtual Learning days on the first Fridays of October, November, and December. He said BPS began the school year with three Distance Learning Fridays, including two in August and one in September.

In assessing the impact of those days, Superintendent McCauley said the District determined that three additional days this semester, one per month, would help both students and teachers adapt to the new environment created by the coronavirus pandemic. He said they are going to evaluate how things go for the remainder of the semester to determine if they need to schedule any Distance Learning Days for the second semester of the school year.

This was done with multiple goals in mind:

• Helping teachers, students, and parents practice with distance/virtual learning to be prepared for likely quarantines and possible inclement weather Virtual Learning days.
• Giving teachers some time to train, collaborate, and catch up given the challenges of virtual students, students in quarantine, and various new online services.

On such days, students still have assignments which they can complete as instructed by teachers often using Canvas, Google Classroom, or a packet.

Superintendent McCauley said Bartlesville Public Schools will be on Fall Break in mid-October. He added that they will be on Thanksgiving Break for a week and Christmas Break for two weeks this year.

Snow days may be treated differently this year as well. Superintendent McCauley said they will have to see how Mother Nature plays out, but if they have to miss school due to weather, they will not make up the day. Instead, Superintendent McCauley said they will make the day a Distance Learning Day.