HIGHLAND SPRINGS PRINCIPAL PAIGE DAY UPDATES FAMILIES JULY 19 ON CONTINGENCY ALTERNATIVE FOR WEEK ONE
We anticipate that Highland Springs Middle School will be open to welcome students for their first day of the 2023-2024 school year on Tuesday, July 25.
At the beginning of the summer, a several week delay in occupancy was foreseeable for Highland Springs. Our District and school leaders worked throughout the summer on a contingency plan for Highland Springs for a potential delayed occupancy of several weeks. We were so appreciative to Dr. Forest Mahan and his team at Aiken Tech and the leaders at nearby North Augusta Middle and Paul Knox Middle for their willingness to temporarily house Highland Springs students, teachers and staff, if needed.
We couldn’t be more grateful to our contractors and other vendors for constructing such a beautiful school and their determination to have it ready to occupy in time for our new school year with an early calendar. H.G. Reynolds’ team has truly worked around-the-clock to ensure that we are ready, and we are nearly 100% sure that we will be. An inspection of the campus was conducted last week. While our teachers were cleared to occupy the building and they are actually there for their first day today, several items were noted on the inspection report to finalize before student occupancy. Those final checklist items are being completed this week in preparation for a follow-up inspection which is scheduled for Monday, the day before the start of our new school year.
While we are very confident that students will be on campus at Highland Springs for the start of the new school year, we will not know that with 100% certainty until the results of the re-inspection are received. School and District leaders have met numerous times over the last several days to discuss contingency possibilities and the drawbacks of each. We’ve considered the original several week contingency plan of in person on three campuses (Aiken Tech, North Augusta and Paul Knox middle schools), virtual, delayed start, and other ideas from all foreseeable angles.
Please know that we are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that the first week for Highlands Springs’ sixth, seventh and eighth grade students is a good one. An Alternative Week-One Virtual Learning Plan was created with the best interest of Highland Springs students in mind and is what we believe to be our best option should Highland Springs experience up to a one-week delay in opening for the start of the new school year. We would appreciate greatly your support in preparing for the possibility of implementing the Alternative Week-One Plan detailed as follows.
On Monday, July 24 from noon-6 p.m., Highland Springs students will pick up their student laptop on the campus of North Augusta High School, 2000 Knobcone Avenue, North Augusta. Device pickup will be separated by grade level in the cafeteria. Directional signage with Highland Springs’ logo will point middle school families to the cafeteria for distribution. Students will be issued usernames and passwords and will sign in while there on campus to activate their laptop.
On Monday evening (July 24), Highland Springs will announce the format for the following day’s start to the new school year. Highland Springs students will either start the new school year on their new campus (and bring with them their student laptop), or they will begin the new school year remotely (utilizing their student laptop).
If we need to implement virtual learning, instructions on how to access that material will be shared Monday evening, along with details on meal pickup for Highland Springs students.
We thank you all for your patience as we make final preparations to welcome Highland Springs students to their new campus!