Marshall County Schools to Begin at ‘Level 3’
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MOUNDSVILLE -- Marshall County Schools administrators announced Monday that students will begin the school year with half of the student body attending in-person classes at a time, for at least the first few weeks.
On the first day of school Sept. 8, students whose last names begin with A-K will return to in-person instruction on Monday and Tuesday, while the other half attend classes online, according to the county's re-entry plan. Each Wednesday, all students will participate in remote learning while the building is cleaned. Thursday and Friday will see the L-Z students attend in-person.
Parents of students who live at the same address but who have different last names are asked to request all family members attend on the same day.
The logistics of whether students will be given the iPads used for remote learning ahead of the first day will depend on the individual schools, administrators said. In-person learning will follow a regular class schedule, while distance learning will use Microsoft Office 365 to complete assignments.
As of Monday, the plan is to remain at level 3 until Oct. 2, three weeks into the semester. However, levels may change at any time based on Gov. Jim Justice's recommendations and the guidance of the Marshall County Health Department. The level following that date will be announced on Sept. 23.
Late last month, the county announced a four-level system for school safety precautions, ranging from full attendance of each student every day at level 1, to fully remote learning, as last school year was forced to conclude.The full chart can be viewed at boe.mars.k12.wv.us.
Superintendent Shelby Haines said Monday the levels would change in accordance with Justice's color-coded chart which he released last week. Marshall County is currently in the green, indicating fewer than seven active cases per 100,000 population -- Marshall County has approximately 30,000 residents. Should the county rise above seven cases -- 25 cases per 100,000 -- in-person instruction must end by the following morning.
"We have a four-level system that will correlate with the governor's colors, and as of now, Marshall County is a green," Haines said. "As long as we stay green or yellow, (eight to 15 cases per 100,000) we can continue to follow our own system here. We'd like to start with level 3, just the same way that you go from most restrictive to least restrictive in any kind of health care or education. Right now, we're in level 4, which we went into on March 13, and we're going to work our way up the level system."
Further down the line, concerns over how to conduct standardized testing is on Haines's mind, and is a concern that has been shared at the state level. No decision on how to safely test large numbers of students at once has yet been made, and the last batch of testing in the spring was not conducted due to COVID-19.
"During a superintendents conference, ... they said at this point, we are unsure, because it's so far down the road," she said. "Last year, we had a waiver through the state department to push it back, so we'll just wait to see if that waiver's extended."
Board of Education Vice President Christie Robison said the hectic spring and summer of planning was able to come up with a satisfactory plan thanks to the efforts of Marshall County's faculty, administrators and the daily cooperation of the health department.
"I think extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures, and we're fortunate at Marshall County Schools to have extraordinary people doing that. Our county staff, principles, teachers, service personnel, are wonderful. I feel very comfortable working with (the health department) to try and make this the safest re-entry we could possibly do," Robison said.
"Kids haven't been in school for almost five months, and there needs to be some teaching. This is going to be a way to try to teach them while staying comfortable," she added.
Robison said the district was doing its best to work within the recommendations of both the health department and the governor's mandates.
Health Administrator Tom Cook said he felt the re-entry plan was the best solution, as it gives a chance to educate staff and students while also striking a compromise in attitudes toward re-entry. School administrators said on several occasions that they would be working daily with the health department to keep students healthy.
"We thought to bring the kids back to school at a slow base, and to educate -- a lot of this comes down to education. These kids and parents, a lot of them don't know what to expect. ... We will be looking at it on a daily basis, we'll have briefings with Dr. Haines and the school board on a daily basis. Things could change daily."