One broken arm on the playground.
One cracked wall in a library.
A handful of snarled bus routes.
And scores of smiling, happy faces.
So went the first day of school in Monongalia County on Tuesday.
“For a first day it couldn’t have gone any better,” Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., said that morning – as students, teachers and staffers were still settling in for the beginning of the 2023-24 year.
For those reporting to Suncrest Middle School on Baldwin Street, that “settling in” part was a little tricky due to a structural issue at the school, which was built in 1939. A new annex was added decades later.
A crack in the outside wall in the original part of the building necessitated the temporary closure of the school library, plus two offices and two meeting spaces in the basement below.
Campbell and Amanda Washington, the district’s executive director of facilities management, updated Board of Education members during their meeting Tuesday night.
The damage was discovered last spring, both said.
Washington told the board three structural engineers, on three different occasions over the summer, assessed the wall and deemed the building safe for the first day.
While people will be in the building, however, they won’t be in the library or in the spaces under the library.
Engineers suggested cordoning off those areas in the building, both said.
Closing off a school library in the 21st century doesn’t carry the same weight as it would have in generations past, Campbell said, given the abundance of books and other educational materials existing in the digital domain.
Teachers will be permitted to enter the library, the superintendent said, should they need something they can’t get online.
That directive is a “precaution,” he added.
“I’m not sure I like that answer,” said Lytle, the board’s president who also owns a contracting firm.
“It’s either safe – or it isn’t.”
Both he and fellow BOE member Dan Berry suggested the library be relocated within the school, which Campbell said wasn’t possible, given the dimensions of that space.
Nancy Walker, the longtime board incumbent, countered, though, saying if the building were truly unsafe, no one would be inside – especially in a structure more than 80 years old.
Repairs are expected to be made by December, once the project is put out for bid, Campell and Washington said.
So went the first day
While a physical structure needs mending, Mon’s students are standing on a strong foundation of academics, based on recent test scores, reported Courtney Crawford, who directs assessment, accountability and counseling services for the system.
Local students are outpacing the state in scores, and in the nation in some cases, she said.
That includes last year’s SAT test, Crawford said.
A total of 57% of Mon students met the English and reading benchmarks on the test, she said, opposed to 51% of students across the U.S.
In the math assessment, 33% of Mon’s students made that benchmark – compared 28% collectively garnered by their peers nationwide who also took the SAT.
Deputy Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico said she was glad the first day was in the books.
Aside from the aforementioned bus route “hiccups,” she said, not one student was displaced by getting on a wrong bus for the 2023 edition of the first day.
Save for the broken bone at recess, Talerico gave the first day a passing grade – and more, she said.
Especially, she said, in a district that is still emerging from the shadow of the pandemic in many ways.
Mon’s success, she said, is a testament to its teachers and students.
“Back to school, face-to-face,” she said.
“It’s all about good teaching and students being in their seats, in front of their teachers.”
