Dear CCSD Family,

Thank you to our entire community for a successful first week of school. I visited nearly every one of our schools last week and saw our students learning, our teachers leading, and our PTA volunteers and community partners supporting our schools.

Among the partners we welcomed to our schools last week were Governor Brian Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp. They visited Ball Ground Elementary School STEM Academy on Friday to celebrate the new school year and thank the Cherokee County community for working together to return to in-person learning on time last school year and again this school year. We're grateful for the Governor's strong support of public education, especially his belief in local control that allows our community to decide what's best for our schools.

At the same time I saw all the sights you expect from the first week of school during my visits, I also saw reminders that we are still living through a global pandemic.

Our school nurses and administrators continue to receive reports about positive COVID-19 cases among our students and staff and are sending notifications -- we appreciate your continued reporting of this important information. Our custodians are not only keeping our schools clean, they also are continuing their additional sanitation measures for high-touch areas. Our front office staff members are continuing to give masks at no charge to students and staff upon request, and we continue to encourage everyone who is eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

While much of our operations have returned to pre-pandemic protocols, that does not mean we believe the pandemic is over -- we know the Delta Variant is spreading more rapidly in our community and in our schools. As we did last school year, we are closely monitoring caseloads in our schools and community -- our staff is in regular communications with the Department of Public Health (DPH) and local hospitals, and we will take appropriate action as needed.

That appropriate action may include temporarily closing classrooms or schools. These decisions are not made lightly and are made, on a case by case basis, in consultation with DPH. We temporarily closed one elementary school classroom on Tuesday evening due to a significant cluster of positive cases; this is the first such closure we've made this school year.

While a significant cluster of positive cases is the primary reason we consider a temporary closure, another factor is staffing, which led to several closures last school year. We hope that the high rate of vaccinations among our teachers and staff and our efforts to further increase our substitute teacher pool will prevent closures due to that reason.

None of us knows what the future holds, and while we all wish the pandemic was already over, it simply is not. We do know that our future will be better if we continue to work together to support our children, our schools and our community.

Thank you,

Dr. Brian V. Hightower

Superintendent of Schools

P.S. Please complete the Back-to-School Gateway online first-day forms as soon as possible if you have not already finished this process. This process ensures we have updated information from you for your child including emergency contacts.

If you have not received it already, the second edition of our Class Act magazine, which is filled with CCSD news and important information, is on its way to you in your child's backpack this week. It's also posted on our website online here. The content of the magazine is produced by CCSD’s Office of Communications, with the advertising and printing by the Cherokee Tribune Ledger-News & Cherokee Life magazine; CCSD does not make a profit from its publication.

Our Principals are dedicated leaders, and we're sharing profiles of Principals who are new to the role or who are serving at new schools this year. Click the links below to learn more about them. #CCSDfam

Tia Bryller of Woodstock Middle School

Dr. Carolyn Daugherty of Bascomb Elementary School

Andy Hall of i-Grad Virtual Academy

Erica Morrie of Mountain Road Elementary School

Christy Rich of Macedonia Elementary School

Melinda Roulier of Ball Ground Elementary School STEM Academy

Mike Santoro of Creekview High School

Aug. 13: CCSD Varsity Football Season scrimmages continue Aug. 13 with regular games starting Aug. 20.

Aug. 14: 8 a.m., Etowah River Park, Chick-fil-A Moo've It 5K Run benefitting the Cherokee County Educational Foundation and Cherokee County Special Olympics.

Aug. 19: 7 p.m., School Board Auditorium at Dr. Frank R. Petruzielo Educational Services Facility, Cherokee County School Board Meeting.

Sept. 6: Labor Day. All CCSD school and office closed.

Sept. 20-24: Fall Break. All CCSD schools closed.

CCSD is seeking school bus drivers! These positions offer excellent benefits (full-time benefits for part-time work, with at least four hours of pay per day guaranteed), a great work calendar and schedule, and a wonderful work environment and team. A Georgia Class B CDL Driver’s License with School Bus & Passenger endorsements is required; CCSD provides drivers with specialized training. Job details are posted at https://bit.ly/CCSDbusdriver. Check out the video at http://bit.ly/CCSDbusvideo to learn more about a day in the life of a CCSD school bus driver! Join the #CCSDfam & apply now by clicking Jobs@CCSD at www.CherokeeK12.net. Questions? Please contact CCSD Recruitment Coordinator Lindsay Bowley at Lindsay.Bowley@cherokeek12.net and 770.704.4256.