Individual schools and parents, rather than the West Point Consolidated School District, will determine what school looks like in West Point when buildings reopen and classes resume in less than a month.
“I wouldn’t ask you to put your child in any situation I wouldn’t allow my own child to be in,” Superintendent Burnell McDonald said in a video released online this morning. He played the video for the WPCSD Board of Trustees at its Monday evening meeting.
Students have the options of attending school in person or learning online like they did from March to May due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and a survey of parents indicates there will be about 50 percent in-person attendance, McDonald said.
That might not translate to social distancing on school buses, so the district is encouraging parents to drive their children to and from school if they are able, and the district might adjust its bus routes to make sure there are not too many children on one bus, McDonald said.
Each school has its own plans for enforcing safety measures and curriculum delivery, but WPCSD also has some district-wide plans, such as limiting the number of students in each classroom, taking the temperatures of everyone who enters a building, requiring administrative approval for visitors and requiring protective face coverings for both students and employees.
“If we have students that refuse to cooperate with teachers and administrators when they’re asked to put on their masks for safety reasons, we may have to call (parents) and ask to switch them to distance learning,” McDonald said.
All desks will face the same direction, teachers will have their own face shields, and teachers and custodial staff will clean and disinfect classrooms regularly, he said.
The degree to which teachers will have to develop in-person, online or both types of lesson plans will depend on the subject, grade level and number of students in each class, McDonald told The Dispatch.
“At the high school, some (teachers) will be the only ones certified in a particular subject and will have to do both,” he said. “On the elementary level, depending on the number of students who show up, it may be able to free up teachers to do online only, but for the most part it’s a combination.”
Lunch safety plans will vary from school to school, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend students eat lunch in classrooms instead of cafeterias, so WPCSD recommends the same, McDonald said.
The district will implement the Canvas learning management system to make it easy to switch back to an entirely virtual learning environment in case a resurgence of the pandemic demands it, he said.
Giving parents a choice of what method of education is best for their children is important, McDonald said, but board member Laquante Pruitt said she believed parents did not want to have to choose.
“I think they want us to tell them what to do and then hold us accountable for whatever happens next,” Pruitt said.
Parents have until July 21 to register their children for in-person or online learning and will be able to change their registration the week before Labor Day if they so choose, but after Labor Day they will have to stick with their decision for the rest of the semester, McDonald said.
The board voted unanimously, at McDonald’s suggestion, to move the school start date from Wednesday, Aug. 5 to Monday, Aug. 10 in order to allow students in the virtual learning environment three additional school days to prepare themselves.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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