Today, we completed the establishment of ongoing educational support for students and the procedures for ongoing food delivery services for our 7,000 students in 15 schools.  Faculty and staff, you have my deepest appreciation and respect.  Your work the last few days has been remarkable.

Now it is time to quickly transition to providing essential operational services during the remainder of our school closure time.  Essential services are services necessary for daily operation.  These include, but are not limited to, providing educational support, providing food services, paying bills, maintaining and improving facilities, answering telephone calls, and conducting other essential business services.

We know we will be closed through Friday, March 27, 2020.  There are indications we could be closed for a longer period of time.  We are waiting for additional guidance from the state on this and other matters.  We will share additional guidance from the state as appropriate.

Haywood County Schools will begin transitioning to essential services operations tomorrow morning, Thursday, March 19, 2020.  The following list includes guidance for employees and the community.

  • Teachers are authorized to work at home beginning Thursday, March 19, 2020.  Teachers who need to go to their assigned school on Thursday to collect materials may do so.  However, the transition to at-home work should be made promptly.
  • Teachers who want or need to access school to provide quality educational support for students are directed to notify the principal prior to reentering the campus.
  • All teachers are directed to inform their principal if they will work primarily “at home” or primarily “at school”.  Principals will document the teacher choices for use in required state reporting.  Teacher choices should be made no later than Friday, March 20, 2020.  All teachers are expected to maintain high quality educational support for all students.  Guidelines and expectations for teachers working at home or at school will be provided to principals.
  • Teacher guidelines apply to all licensed instructional support staff (social workers, counselors, media, itinerant teachers, psychologists, etc.).
  • Beginning Thursday, March 19 through the end of required school closure, as long as you work at home or at school, you will not be required to take accumulated leave.
  • System-level administrators, principals, full-time classified (hourly or salaried) employees, and part-time permanent employees (including teacher assistants) should report to work or take appropriate accumulated leave.  Employees in these categories are needed on-site to maintain essential services operations.  Some duties may be adjusted to support essential services operations.  Additional guidance will be provided for individuals in this category.  This guidance will come from system-level administration and principals.
  • In moving to essential services operations, Haywood County Schools will operate like many other public and private businesses at this time.  We strongly encourage the public to do business over the telephone or through other electronic means (needmytranscript.com, etc.).   Individual walk-in services are allowed at this point for essential services only.
    • School offices will be open for essential services (business) operations from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. as a minimum.
    • The Central Office and other system-level office operations will be open for essential services (business) operations from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. as a minimum.
    •  Individual system-level departments may find it necessary to shift these hours in order to provide the most effective essential services (business) operations.  Should times change, the individual department will post the change.

During the duration of the imposed closure of schools, the school system will conduct small group meetings needed to facilitate essential services operations.  These meetings will be limited to school employees in most instances.  System-level administration will participate in like meetings with government and other community partners when necessary.

This is an evolving situation.  We will share additional updates as the situation evolves or when state or federal officials make mandatory changes.

Thank you for what you do to support Haywood County Schools and our entire community during these most unusual times.  Be calm, kind, smart, and safe.

Contact:  Dr. Bill Nolte, Superintendent