Mon schools hope to open Sept. 8
Face masks.
Classrooms with doors and windows left open, whenever possible.
Backpacks, instead of lockers.
Assigned seating on buses.
No water fountains (but water-filling stations and encouraged use of water bottles).
Choir practice, outdoors, whenever possible.
Specially designated “COVID-19” rooms, outfitted with thermometers and protective gear, should a student or staffer feel ill.
The above, and more, is what back to school will look like this year in Monongalia County — if students go back at all.
“We have to take absolutely everything into account,” said Donna Talerico, the district’s assistant superintendent.
What you get when you do that, is what she offered to Board of Education members last week.
It’s a 40-page document, christened, “Return to Learn.”
“That’ll be our blueprint,” she said.
Right now, the first day of school in Mon and across West Virginia is Sept. 8.
The only one who can make the final call is Gov. Jim Justice, who has already pushed the day back from Aug. 20.
It still may be a county-by-county or school-by-school proposition, depending upon how rampant COVID-19 is in your attendance area come that day.
And the coronavirus is still roaming the halls here.
As of 4 p.m. Friday, the state Department of Health and Human Resources reported 6,578 cases in West Virginia, with 116 deaths.
That included the 869 positive cases in Monongalia, at that time.
When you’re dealing with the teeming ecosystem that is Mon’s school district, you need every bit of 40 pages, Talerico said.
Thirteen committees, made up of educators and others, have been dug in for the past several weeks, with the final version for board approval due in coming days.
Other measures: The elimination of field trips and assemblies.
The addition of lunch periods throughout the day.
Disposable hall passes (a possibility).
Rubrics to help teachers when they suspect COVID-19 in a student.
An easing of tardiness rules if a student is waiting for the restroom, now with occupancy requirements: Two at a time, plus the number of stalls.
Training on how to properly wear and dispose of personal protective equipment.
Multiple entrances and exits during school bus time, to avoid congestion.
And that’s just a fraction of the plan, Talerico said.
“Which could also go away,” she stressed.
“Things are really changing by the hour.”
For now, Mon has its seven-day, staggered re-entry plan for the start of school ready to go.
That means one group of classes in the building one day, with others doing remote learning from home.
The district, she said, is prepared to extend that schedule, which will ride on the conduct grade of COVID-19.
Mon, she said, is also poised to go total remote learning, as it did this past spring.
That’s not the district’s preference, though, and she agrees.
Talerico began her career as an elementary teacher and said face-to-face learning is still the school rule, even if those faces are partially covered.
But right now, she said, there’s the pandemic, slouching in the back row.
“We want our kids back in school,” she said.
“We want them to have a fun, positive learning experience, but what we really want is for them to be safe.”
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