W. Clayton Burch, West Virginia’s newly named Superintendent of Schools, didn’t waste any time Wednesday laying the framework for a big assignment concerning the first day of classes two months from now.
Members of the state Board of Education, meeting in Charleston, didn’t waste any time lifting the “interim” handle from his job title, either.
The longtime administrator stepped in following the sudden resignation and retirement of Steve Paine in February.
COVID-19 stepped in a month later.
Ensuing surges of coronavirus cases prompted Gov. Jim Justice to shutter every single one of West Virginia’s 657 elementary, middle and high schools for the duration.
Burch said Wednesday he’d like to see all 657 buildings occupied, even if only on limited days, come fall.
In Monongalia County, that means the newly (re)elected Ron Lytle has his homework staring him full in the face, without blinking or flinching.
Lytle, the BOE president who held on to his seat during the county’s primary the day before, said he and his fellow board members will assemble next week to see how they can enable students to answer the bell.
The work session will be 6 p.m. Tuesday at the board’s central offices on South High Street.
It will be the first of many such gatherings, he said.
That’s because there are “so many issues,” the president decreed.
“On so many levels.”
School … daze
He’s referring to two of the three “re-entry scenarios” the state board is fronting, and assessing, in sessions of its own.
The third — total remote learning — will be considered only if the pandemic plays to another shutdown.
Scenario No. 1 is billed by Burch and the board as, “Safe at School/Safer at Home.”
It’s meant to maintain community and structure for pre-kindergarten through 5th grade.
Students would report to school four days a week, with limited access and all the preventive measures in place.
They would work from home on the fifth day, while their schools would undergo heavy cleaning and disinfecting.
Scenario No. 2, the “Blended Learning and Delivery Model,” would mean middle school and high school grades in session limted days of the week, with smaller classes and flexible schedules.
Access to the library, cafeteria and other communal areas would also be limited.
Please be seated (maybe)
Local school boards would have the final say on any of the above, Burch said.
While he likes the idea of students in a school building — for socialization, and, more importantly, interaction with teachers in the front of the room — safety, he said, must always be the first to raise its hand.
The pandemic particulars, Lytle said, had to be almost microscopically considered, concerning the infrastructure.
Mon’s school district, he said, is a network of infrastructure, within its own microcosm.
Managing the student population therein, he said, becomes even more critical, in the shadow of a virus that can kill.
“You look at Morgantown High, for example,” he said.
“You’ve got 300 kids in the band. You might have 15 in an honors class.”
Population sets and subsets, Lytle said, all having to make their way, some way, in the same hallways.
“We’re gonna be busy.”
Can the districts do it?
Eddie Campbell Jr., Mon’s superintendent of schools, was saying the same as his board president last week.
That’s when he was mulling over suggested guidelines sent out nationally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From its Atlanta headquarters, Campbell said, it was truth in advertising.
Especially in the “prevention” part, he said.
One such proposal called for limiting passengers on school buses to 10 or 11 at a time.
Sounds good, the superintendent said.
Until one considers that routes and transit times would have to be doubled.
And tripled.
Quadrupled, even.
“As good and commonsense as they are, some of these measures would be really hard to pull off for a district our size,” he said.
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