Will snow days become a casualty of COVID-19?
Likely so, Eddie Campbell Jr. said Tuesday night.
Campbell, Mon’s superintendent of schools, told Board of Education members that students will work remotely Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week in the lead-up to Thanksgiving.
And in the week following the holiday, they’ll again do distance-learning from home.
That will be in accordance with Gov. Jim Justice’s mission to quell any additional exposures to the coronavirus.
Students would normally have all of Thanksgiving week off, the superintendent said.
However, with school starting late this year because of the pandemic, every county district is scrambling to hit the state-mandated, 180-day requirement of instruction.
The learning days next week will be used similar to the district’s “Arctic Academy” days for when winter checks in.
Board member Mike Kelly said he thinks the new emphasis on remote learning will be a permanent venue.
“There go the snow days,” he said.
“It’s certainly looking that way,” Campbell replied.
Deputy Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico said the district will still offer breakfast and lunch during the break, which will be available for pickup at any school.
Should a student forget any homework or other necessary materials, she said, parents may also call for a curbside
handover.
The buildings won’t be entirely empty, she said.
Teachers will be in their classrooms, although their numbers may be sparse on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
The district’s supply of PPE, the personal protective equipment that’s now standard issue for pandemic days, is hardly sparse, Talerico said.
“We’ve got what we need.”
Every school building in the county will also get a thorough once-over during the break by the district’s COVID cleaning and disinfecting crew, she said.
Of dates and deficiencies
In the meantime, both the board of directors of West Virginia Academy Ltd. and officials with Mon Schools have given thorough once-overs to critical correspondence exchanged over the past several days.
The academy is the state’s first proposed charter school and it would be built in the Morgantown area.
Its board of directors had until 4 p.m. last Friday to respond to a list of deemed deficiencies by the district, as part of the official review process.
Its application numbers 371 pages.
John Treu, a WVU accounting professor and the academy’s board chairman, said the academy was fundamentally objecting to Mon’s list — saying the district missed the 90-day deadline for its response.
That date remained in dispute Tuesday.
In a letter to Campbell, Treu said by state code, the meter started running after submission of the application last July.
Campbell said otherwise, though, and State Schools Superintendent Clayton Burch agreed.
Treu in his letter also said while the academy had already addressed county concerns in an interview last month, it still reiterated its answers “in good faith” to the district, in its response.
Burch used that same expression in his response to Mon Schools and the academy.
“It is my hope that all parties involved have approached this process with good faith,” the state superintendent said.
Mon’s BOE, meanwhile, meets in special session at noon Nov. 30 to approve or deny the application.
