MORGANTOWN — Monongalia County’s school district has every intention of saving some face this fall.
Make that lots of faces, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
Campbell wants to lift the mask mandate for 2021-2022.
With a face-covering caveat, though, he said.
The new measure would be contingent on COVID vaccination rates going up — and COVID infection rates trending the other way.
And no pressure, he said, should a student, teacher or staffer want to continue wearing a mask, just because.
“We want to give flexibility,” the superintendent said. “We want to come back on as ‘normal’ a basis as we can make it.”
“Normal,” as in pre-pandemic, he said. “Normal,” as in registering for the dosage if you haven’t already.
Gov. Jim Justice said the same during his most-recent briefing with reporters on the coronavirus this past week.
“Please, West Virginia,” he said, “don’t drop your guard.”
Don’t let go of the cost ledger, either.
That’s because another $760 million will be available to West Virginia’s K-12 schools in coming weeks.
The federal dollars will be delivered via the American Rescue Plan, and may only be spent for pandemic purposes.
“Rescue,” as in helping students, teachers and buildings come back from the pandemic, Campbell said — everything from attitude to infrastructure.
Funds can be used to hire new teachers or install new heating and cooling ventilation systems, which proved critical at the height of the pandemic in West Virginia’s often-antiquated school buildings.
That’s long been part of the mission in Mon’s district, Campbell said.
The district earlier last year created its Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to address the emotional health of students, pandemic stresses or no.
An outlay from an earlier round of dollars from federal Elementary and Secondary School Fund will pay for the district’s Summer Avalanche enrichment learning camps next month.
For now, Campbell said, he and his fellow administrators are huddling to begin work on the application for American Rescue Plan monies.
That document must go to the state Department of Education for approval next month.
The district is already planning on earmarking some of the money to fill teaching slots, while adding to support services programs.
He said the district won’t be masked into temptation, as it were, by creating programs — solely for the purpose of creating programs.
“We’re going to ramp up our summer learning programs and our social and emotional support programs,” he said. “The idea is to come up with things that are sustainable down the road. We don’t want to put anything in place that will hurt us when we don’t have the funds.”
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