KINGWOOD – Cassandra Sisler, vice president of the Preston County Education Association, expressed concerns about vaccinations at the Monday evening meeting of the Preston County Board of Education.
“People are scared,” she said “It has a lot to do with (COVID) vaccinations. I have coworkers who drive from pharmacy to pharmacy and out of state. Ask the governor (Jim Justice) to give control of the vaccine back to the state.”
BOE President Jack Keim said he appreciated Sisler’s input. But, he added, the board has no say on how many doses come to West Virginia or to Preston County.
“In surrounding states, teachers have not been prioritized,” he said. “In Maryland, very few teachers have been vaccinated.”
Superintendent of Schools Steve Wotring said roughly 80 people on the list of full-time employees have not received their first dose of the vaccine.
Board Member Pam Feathers said several employees had received their fist shot from other sources.
Wotring said he would send emails and find out how many had done so, so he could update his information.
In other business, Wotring told Delegate Buck Jennings he was concerned about finances. He said with the pandemic and home schooling the number of students attending school had dropped from 4,400 to 4,100.
“The one thing we would like to see is a hold harmless pass. If we’re not funded at the year before (the pandemic), we wont have teachers to teach when the kids come back.”
Keim agreed. He said if the BOE is funded at last year’s numbers, they will lose 25 employees.
Wotring said he would also like to see a change in the school calendar. He said instead of snow days, he would like to have remote days.
“What the legislators don’t understand is we need flexibility. I’d love a set calendar, if we could use snow days as remote days. My first year here we had 22 snow days,” he said.
Jennings said he would present the BOE’s questions to his colleagues.
“The main thing is finances,” Keim said. “If we lose 25 employees, we will be in trouble.”
Destiney Ringer, a junior at Preston High School, said students are feeling cheated due to the lack of academic competition. She said she could stand 6 feet from someone and do a project.
Ringer said she wanted to address prioritizing sports over academics and said many academic projects like Math Field Day and the Science Fair could be done virtually. She said some students depended on the projects as an addition to their college resumes.
“I was in the first Math Field Day,” Wotring said. “I put it on my college resume.”
Keim and Wotring promised to work on finding a solution that would allow some academic competitions.
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