Those rumbles you heard during Tuesday’s meeting of the Monongalia County Board of Education were a good thing.
BOE members and school administrators discussed particulars of the sprawling “Summer Avalanche” learning enrichment program which will run July 6-29 across the district.
Course offerings range from the rudiments of money management for elementary students to ACT and SAT test preparation tips for the rising seniors ready for college.
There’s that, plus everything from woodworking to a surgical primer, in-between.
The motivation behind all these courses came from the coronavirus.
Administrators want to help students regain some footing after a 15-month period of sliding to varying degrees since March 13, 2020 – when Gov. Jim Justice ordered all schools closed.
Much like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the district’s shot in the arm came in the form of county and federal monies.
The avalanche is mainly being bankrolled by a $1.4 million outlay from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Relief Fund, or ESSERF, as it known.
All those programs in all those schools means lots of teachers, bus drivers and other critical employees to make it go.
Free transportation and free breakfast and lunch will be provided for participants, and while the district is still working to fill a remaining handful of teacher’s-aide positions, everything else is basically covered, Mon Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
In many ways, the avalanche will serve the early opening for the first day of school in August for the 2021-22 term.
The district wrapped up another vaccination clinic last week, putting 700 shots in the arms of students and anyone associated with the district.
Campbell wants to lift the mask mandate for the coming year, provided vaccines trend upward and positive diagnoses go the other way.
An avalanche runs downhill, Deputy Superintendent Donna Talerico said this spring when the summer programming was gridded out – and physical things that go downhill, she observed, always pick up momentum.
Good thing, BOE member Melanie Rogers replied then.
Rogers, a counselor who often sees children in her private practice, said it will probably take two years to gauge and the emotional and intellectual impact wrought by the pandemic on Mon’s students.
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