Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By DONNAMY STEELE | Special to the Reporter

When Alabaster City Schools students, faculty and staff returned to the classrooms this time last year, they did not realize the semester would close with a pandemic at large.

Despite the uncertainty that lingers, Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers feels optimistic going into the spring semester and reflects on the hardships ACS employees and students have overcome since last year.

“First of all I want to thank my employees, administrators and students for making this first semester a success. Being able to transition into a full traditional schedule, it was very successful, and we felt like everyone cooperating and working together made that possible,” Vickers said. “Last year ended abruptly because of the introduction of COVID back in March. We plan to continue to follow our roadmap and mitigate the spread of the virus in our schools. Our employees, parents and students have been great partners, and we look forward to continuing with this partnership throughout the rest of the school year.”

Alabaster City Schools returned to their full traditional schedule on Jan. 6 and have been in full session since then, Vickers said.

The roadmap ACS has been following this school year provides options for both virtual and traditional sessions in order to maintain a smooth sailing semester.

“One thing about our roadmap to reopening is we have all of those options so that if we ever needed to move to an alternate schedule or remote learning, we have those options that we can utilize if we need to,” Vickers said. “Our goal for Alabaster City Schools is to keep everyone healthy and safe and keep the same momentum we had in the first semester going this semester.”

Vickers said he and the ACS board are excited about this semester, and they are asking everyone to continue to work together.

“We don’t want to let our guard down,” Vickers said. “We want to work together to keep doing the things we have been doing both in school and in the community.”