Open house events for all 16 Bulloch County Schools campuses will be held Thursday, July 28, as the school district prepares to receive more than 11,000 students for classes beginning Monday.

Thursday, all of the elementary schools will open their doors for students and their parents or other family members to meet teachers and visit classrooms between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. At the middle and high schools, the open house hours will be 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Officially, the district operates 15 schools, but Transitions Learning Center, in the same complex with the Board of Education central offices on Williams Road, is a 16th campus. The Transitions Learning Center alternative program will also hold an open house, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Thursday. Then an open house for the school system’s Virtual Learning Program, for which 382 students have signed up throughout Bulloch County, will be held from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., also at Transitions Learning Center.

Additionally, most schools hold events at other times for children in the gateway years – prekindergarten at elementary schools, sixth grade at middle schools and ninth grade at high schools – notes Hayley Greene, public relations director for the Bulloch County Schools.

Those students and their family members “can come to one or both events, but that (the  gateway-year event) just offers a time to come into the building at a less congested time,” Greene said. “You get more one-on-one time with your teacher. You get more information that might be targeted just for your child since they’re coming into the school for the first time.”

Some of the schools’ events for incoming students in those transitional grades may have been held last week. Others are being held this week, and a few are even slated for after school begins next week. Schools should be in direct communication with parents about these events, or parents can check with the school offices.

Driving to school

Open house events may satisfy some parents’ desire to ease their children into a new school year and environment.  But many parents, grandparents or guardians will bring their children, especially the youngest, to school the first day or even the first few days.

So, school officials advise everyone to allow plenty of time and drive with added caution and patience.

“Expect traffic to be heavy and expect traffic delays,” Greene said. “So, you’ll want to make sure you leave home in plenty of time. Those first two weeks of school a lot more kids are car riders than normal.”

Many children who have school buses assigned will ride with parents those first few days, she notes.

Parents walk in?

Parents of children in the elementary schools – prekindergarten through fifth grade – are allowed to walk their children into schools during the first two weeks, Aug. 1-5 and Aug. 8-12, only.

“But thereafter they can only come into the front-door lobby,” Greene said. “But we expect middle and high school students to be able to walk on in independently on Day One.”

200+ new hires

Many of the schools’ employees will have been back at work for more than a week before students start classes Aug. 1. A total workforce of roughly 2,100 people – which includes part-timers, contracted service providers and substitutes, as well as full-time employees – makes the public school system Bulloch County’s second-largest employer.

Currently about 995 of those employees are certified educators, including teachers, administrators and various specialists.

Superintendent Charles Wilson welcomed this season’s approximately 225 new Bulloch County Schools employees at an annual new hire orientation held July 20 at Statesboro High School. The new hires attended sessions on topics ranging from school safety to employee benefits, had lunch and attended a “trade show” that drew local and area vendors.

"We are excited to welcome our new stars to Bulloch County," Alli Baxter, the district's chief human resources officer, said in a news release Greene provided.

New teachers

About 70 of the new employees are teachers. Even before the new hire orientation, new teachers had met July 15 at Mattie Lively Elementary School for the first of 10 Induction Teacher Program sessions to be held monthly through May.

The program, in operation since 2015, models teaching and classroom management practices and communicates “the high standards” the district expects, Greene said.

Led by the school system’s team of instructional coaches, the sessions are created based on feedback from new teachers and their school-based mentors.

"This allows the program to be flexible and responsive to the needs of each individual new teacher cohort," said Ragan Adkins, one of the district’s school improvement directors. Adkins and fellow school improvement director Millie Boykin are leading the induction program this school year.

Returning teachers have been back at school in “pre-planning” activities, including getting their classrooms ready for students, since Thursday, July 20.

A “Back to School 2022-23” guide in magazine format, with information on independent schools including Bible Baptist Christian Academy, Bulloch Academy, Statesboro STEAM Academy and Trinity Christian School, as well as the Bulloch County Schools, appeared in the Statesboro Herald’s July 22 weekend edition.