Superintendent Charles Young: Start of School Update 7-17-2020

Dear Benicia Community,

On behalf of the Board Trustees and myself, we hope this communication finds you healthy and safe during this challenging and ever changing time in our society due to Covid-19.  The complexity and unpredictability of this pandemic is calling upon all of us to be flexible and responsive in our decision making in order to protect and preserve the health and safety of those we serve.

With that said the Benicia Unified School District will begin the school year in an all virtual learning model.  We intend to work in the virtual learning model for the first quarter of the year. To remain responsive, we will review the status of our virtual learning model at each Board meeting throughout the first quarter.

While we intended to make this decision at our July 23rd Special Board meeting, the rate of case increase in our community, information gathered from our workforce and families, and uneven guidance being shared at the state and local level have compelled us to move up our decision making timeline.  On July 23rd we will instead focus on the details of the virtual learning model and the hybrid learning model that we intend to move into when we can safely move forward.

We know for some of you, this decision might come as a relief and for others, it will cause further challenges.  We all want students back in school, there is no disagreement there, but we must do so through exercising an abundance of caution. We are also reviewing the status of our childcare program to determine if we can safely expand capacity to support more of our families.

If you are not able to watch the Board meeting of July 23rd, please know the meetings are recorded and posted on our website for your convenience.  We will also put together a summary of key points and make that available to you in a Superintendent update..

Thank you so much for being patient, supportive and committed to the safety and well being of everyone in our community.  The Board and I wish there were easier answers to all of this but unfortunately, there are not. For now, we believe this is the most prudent course of action for the start of our school year together.