Metrics on a map can’t account for emotion.
Such as when you’re missing your buddies from school.
Such as the joy of simply being in the building — even if you do gripe about it, sometimes.
That’s why student Liam O’Connor will be up early and out the door Thursday morning on his way to Morgantown High School, where he’s in his junior year.
Monongalia County Schools will ease into face-to-face learning that day, after pulling a surprise showing of green over the weekend on the map the state Department of Education uses to chart the coronavirus across all 55 counties in West Virginia.
“Surprise,” is the watch-word, Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said Monday.
Campbell said he was expecting Mon to go into the gold designation.
Gold is one hue down from orange on the map, which means remote learning and no extracurricular activities, such as football games.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
The district, meanwhile, is taking the responsibility of doing something that’s really been happening since the first day of school three weeks ago, Campbell said — when Mon was a solid red on the map, which is the worst a county can be.
And that’s the act of getting 18 buildings ready for staggered groups of students who signed up for the blended-learning model, he said.
That’s the choice for more than 70% of Mon families who want to see their children in school at some level this year, according to results from a survey over the summer.
Under the blended model, students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade whose last names begin with the letters
A through L will report to their schools Thursday for a full day of in-person instruction.
Their M-through-Z counterparts will attend the following day for a full schedule of instruction.
And high school football games here are already back on the slate for Friday night.
Visit the district web site at https://boe.mono. k12.wv.us/ for more back-to-school news and information on other pandemic particulars.
COVID, candid
Another person ready for Thursday is Campbell, who said he is anxious to see all the components at work for the county’s re-entry plan.
The superintendent reiterated that all the safety protocols are set and just need deploying.
“We’ll know Thursday morning how it’s all going to go,” he said.
Gov. Jim Justice defended the state’s methodology of tracking the coronavirus during his COVID-19 briefing Monday — and bristled, somewhat, at reporters’ questions related to that subject, especially with outbreaks now showing up in schools.
Mingo County’s school superintendent, for example, was diagnosed with COVID-19 earlier this month.
And in Monongalia County, an employee at Morgantown High has tested positive.
A staffer at North Elementary has also, along with another student who had been taking limited classes there. The district opened its doors earlier for in-person learning, in order to better accommodate students with pronounced cognitive and physical issues.
Teacher unions have already chided the governor for changes made to the metric.
At MHS, the faculty senate is on the record with a vote of no-confidence for in-person learning of any kind, given the unpredictability of the pandemic.
Justice spoke directly to teachers and service employees toward the end of the question-and-answer session.
“Have I not, since the get-go, done every single thing I can do to keep you safe, to keep our kids safe? Have I ever told you something that’s not the truth?
The truth for Liam O’Connor, meanwhile, is that he just wants to go back to school.
He’ll take all the protocols, he said, with the understanding that it could all be shuttered again, depending upon the swath cut by COVID-19.
“There’s just something about the experience of actually being there.”
