Ask Donna Talerico what her plans are for summer vacation, and the deputy superintendent of Monongalia County’s school district will just laugh.
While she tells you that her “summer” vacation traditionally hits sometime in the fall — after students are back and settled in for the new term.
“There’s not a lot of downtime for us right now,” she said this past Tuesday.
Tuesday was the official last day of the academic year for students, who finished up with at-home assignments that were snow day makeups, Talerico said.
The learning, though, picks up quick this coming week.
That’s when the “Summer Sizzler” outreach hits the road and comes to a school bus stop near you.
Books and nutritious snacks will be delivered across the county in the promotion that runs through Thursday — so students can keep up with their reading, even if they are away from the school library.
An avalanche hits after that through most of July.
Every school in the district will be open for the “Summer Avalanche” activities, which were born out of the pandemic.
Writing classes. Sessions of music production and e-gaming. History seminars delving into West Virginia and Appalachia.
“It’s a pretty diverse lineup,” Talerico said of the Avalanche activities, which run July 5-28.
The Governor’s Schools of West Virginia, meanwhile, will again hold in-person learning sessions across the state. The schools were canceled in 2020 due the pandemic and held virtually last year for the same.
WVU will host science, technology, engineering and math sessions — STEM — from Thursday through July 1.
Meanwhile, COVID continues to wax and wane across the Mountain State.
West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources is reporting 2,198 active cases statewide, including 153 in Mon and 26 in Preston. Neighboring Marion and Harrison counties have 126 and 92 cases, respectively.
Mon’s school district ended the final week of school with 30 positive cases among its students. Another 14 staffers presented with positive diagnoses.
Of the state’s 55 counties, 38 were showing green on the DHHR county alert map from this past Thursday. That hue is the best for low infection rates of the virus.
Monongalia and Marion counties were among the 17 showing yellow on the map, which hadn’t been updated Friday.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
