North Carolina requires a face covering of your choice for all employees, adult visitors, and middle and high school students when they are or may be within six feet of another person, including:  

• inside school buildings and anywhere on school grounds, including outside; and
  while traveling on buses or other contract transportation vehicles.
• A face covering must be secured safely over the nose, mouth, and under the chin.
• State health officials strongly recommend face coverings for all people over the age of two.

Face coverings are not required for individuals who:

• Cannot tolerate a face covering due to developmental, medical, or behavioral health needs
• Cannot wear one due to a sincerely held religious belief
• Are “actively” eating or drinking
• Are “strenuously exercising”
• Are seeking to communicate with a hearing impaired person in a way that requires the mouth to be visible
• Have found that a face covering is impeding visibility to operate equipment or a vehicle
• Are children whose parent, guardian, or responsible person has been unable to place a face covering safely on the child’s face

Face coverings are an additional step to help slow the spread of COVID-19 when combined with everyday preventive actions and social distancing in public settings. 

Face coverings will be provided for students who do not have access to one. If given a reusable face covering, it is the responsibility of the family to wash it when needed and bring it back to reuse it.

Please also review face covering best practices on the CDC website with your child and help them practice wearing face coverings appropriately for extended periods of time.

Handwashing is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your family from getting sick. The CDC recommends everyone wash their hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Teachers will be teaching handwashing in the classroom, incorporating handwashing breaks into the school day, and reinforcing handwashing during key times throughout the school day such as before and after eating, using the restroom, and touching shared objects.

Washing hands with soap and water is the best way to get rid of germs in most situations. If soap and water are not readily available, individuals are encouraged to use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (containing at least 60% alcohol). Schools will provide hand-sanitizing stations at every school entrance and exit, in the cafeteria, in every class, and on every bus and transportation vehicle.

If your child has sensitivities to hand sanitizer, please communicate this with your child’s teachers so they can provide your child other opportunities to clean their hands.

To prepare for a return to campus, please review the hand sanitizer best practices on the  CDC website with your child.

All schools are taking actions to ensure all campus spaces and buildings support health and safety. These actions include: signage and floor markings to remind students of social-distancing practices, changes to foot-traffic flow through buildings and on campus pathways, furniture placement in classrooms and much more.

Before and after school, we ask students to avoid congregating on campus. Employees will direct students to clear the hallways and parking lots and leave campus in an effort to encourage social distancing.

Buildings will be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected throughout the day and every evening. Multiple times a day, custodians will perform the following duties, among others:

• Sweeping, dust mopping, and spot mopping hallways, steps, and stair landings, as well as the cafeteria;
• Cleaning and disinfecting hall water fountains; 
• Cleaning and disinfecting bathroom floors, sinks, toilets, urinals, and stall handles; monitoring hand sanitizer, soap, and paper products;
• Wiping and disinfecting touch points in halls, common areas, and classrooms, if accessible.
• Our disinfectant is an EPA-approved disinfectant for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Current cleaning and disinfecting protocols will continue to be reviewed and enhanced in terms of frequency and intensity.

Only essential visitors will be allowed on school campuses in an effort to protect the health and safety of our community by minimizing the number of people on sites. 

All efforts will be made to keep necessary visitors to a minimum, including the use of virtual or telephone meetings with families and guests.

If it is essential to have family members or visitors enter the facility, they must go through the same health screening process as students and employees. All visitors are required to follow guidelines in the Cloth Face Covering section of this document. Any meetings with a family member or visitor must follow social-distancing guidelines.

In response to COVID-19, students will be prohibited from drinking directly from water fountains. 

All students are encouraged to bring their own bottled water or reusable water bottles. All water bottles should be clearly labeled with the user’s name. It is the students’ responsibility to keep track of their water bottles and take them home for regular cleaning.

If students need water and do not have a water bottle, they may ask an employee for a cup to get water from the water fountain.

To promote social distancing, no more than one student will be seated on a school bus seat at a time. No more than two students at a time will be seated in a vendor transportation vehicle. Exceptions can be made for family members. 

Hand sanitizer will be available on all school transportation vehicles for safe use by employees and older children. 

Touch points, including doors and windows, grab handles, arm rests, hard seats, door handles, and seat belt buckles, will be cleaned and disinfected between each bus run with an EPA-approved disinfectant for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Every bus will be cleaned between morning and afternoon runs and at the end of each day.

Our child nutrition employees will continue to prepare food in our school kitchens following very strict food safety and sanitation procedures required by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), and NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). All meals will be individually packaged for direct service to students.

The 2020-2021 school year free and reduced-price meal benefits application will be available online in early July. 

Our menus will continue to feature student favorites, our signature in-house speed-scratch specialties, fresh Got To Be NC farm-to-school fruits and vegetables, and will provide the protein, whole grains, low-fat dairy, fruits and vegetables that are important ingredients in a nutritious meal.

 At this time, no decisions have been made on resuming athletic and co-curricular activities. 

There are currently extensive requirements for resuming athletic and co-curricular activities, including daily temperature checks and symptom screenings of all student-athletes and band members prior to allowing them to begin a workout or practice.

Student-athletes and band members are encouraged to work out and practice at home if they can do so safely.

Before- and after-school programs will continue to be available. Pricing and schedules may be modified to reflect changes to school schedules. Before- and after-school programs will follow the guidelines from NCDHHS for child care providers.

For the upcoming school year, in-person field trips have been suspended to ensure the safety of our students and employees.