On April 9, Governor Tom Wolf closed all Pa. schools through the end of the academic year. BASD will continue to deliver online learning, as the district has been doing since March 30.

In an email to school administrators statewide, Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera outlined relief measures related to the closure:

• Teachers will not be held to the statutory professional evaluations of an ordinary school year. Although local districts are obliged under Act 82 to complete professional evaluations for the 2019–20 school year, the requirement to include performance data under section 1123 has been waived.

• Student teachers will not be required to make up the lost time of in-classroom experience, but will be able to complete a “competency-based alternative to the 12-week student teaching experience.”

• Other statutory requirements for number of hours of instruction are paused. (Full details are available on the secretary’s Act 13 page.)

BASD school board President Mike Faccinetto answered some questions regarding what the school closures will mean for local families.

- The BASD school board reaction to governor’s order to close schools statewide through the end of the year: “We fully support the governor’s decision and we appreciate the leadership coming from Harrisburg, and the fact this decision is not being put on individual superintendents and individual districts.”

- What this means for graduations: “We’re taking this one step at a time. Even though school is closed, we are hoping there is a way to figure out big events: prom, graduation, etc. Graduation is at Stabler, so a lot of what we do will depend on what Lehigh does. It is our intention to have graduation. It may be delayed.”

- Concerns regarding schools in corrective action, like Broughal MS: “My assumption would be that this spring semester will be treated almost as a do-over - that [schools in corrective action] would not be held to the three-year [Comprehensive School Improvement] timeline that was initially put out. Hopefully, the financial support will be extended [so that Broughal can follow through on its planned course of action], because it’s going to be really challenging to come back in the fall and pick up where they left off. I would hope that we would not be penalized, but if we were, we would work with the Pa. School Boards Association (PSBA) to get relief. The state organizations would fight for the students and the teachers on that, just as they’ve worked to get other relief measures passed over the past month.”