Jefferson County Schools have entered a Stage 3 closure as of Monday, March 23, meaning a total shutdown of school campuses and no staff are to report to work. The county’s superintendent made the announcement on their website last week.
“We take the safety of our students, our staff and our community very seriously,” said Joyce White, Jefferson County Schools deputy superintendent for operations and acting director of safety. “So the fact that the first confirmed case was in fact in Jefferson County, we wanted to practice social distancing at its very highest level.”
But despite the total shutdown, White said they’ll still be doing everything they can to feed the district’s 9,000 enrolled students.
“We will use volunteers, and we still have the volunteers that will be able to see us through … [and] we want to reassure our families that we will be communicating with them,” she said.
White said, with the help from a community feeding program called Kidz Power Pacs, Jefferson County provided 500 families enough meals to last at least two and a half weeks during this closure.
White said meals will still be provided to any who stop by their pick up locations. They will also be delivering some meals.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep going for as long as we can safely do so. After that, we will partner with other local agencies, such as Homeland Security here in Jefferson County, in order to continue to make sure people get fed,” she said.
According to White, Jefferson County staff are still being paid during the Stage 3, total shutdown and have been offered telecommuting options to work from home.
Schools across West Virginia closed Monday, March 16, for at least two weeks in an effort to help stem the transmission of the coronavirus.
Since the shutdown was announced, West Virginians around the state have been working to make sure students are fed. According to the West Virginia Department of Education, more than two-thirds of school-aged children, or more than 183,000, qualify for free or reduced-priced meals.
Mountaineers are getting creative. Some schools are offering curbside food pickups, putting lunches on school busses, and in some communities restaurants, food banks and churches are stepping up.
West Virginians are finding ways to come together in this time where people are being asked to socially distance.
Providing In Wheeling
Word started to get out that schools would likely be closing. That’s when Bob Bailey, who’s had a catering business in the upper Ohio Valley for almost three decades, said he had a sobering moment of realization.
“There are children that their main meal, or their only meal of the day, is their school lunch,” he said.
Credit Screenshot from Facebook
/
Bob Bailey put a message out on social media and got a huge response.
Bailey put out a call on social media asking residents of Ohio and Marshall counties to: “please contact my business if a child relies on school lunches for their main meal of the day… I will gladly provide hot meals for children in need.”
In three days, he said more than 600 people responded, many offering to help.
“There were so many people reaching out saying, ‘Do you need money? Do you need people to come help pack lunches? Do you need people to run deliveries?’” he said.
Bailey said he received some financial donations that he’s set aside to defray food costs and that allowed him to buy biodegradable food containers. It didn’t take long to receive requests from families, including one set of grandparents who live nearby and are on a fixed income. They’re watching three grandchildren during the school closures.
“She contacted me yesterday, and she said she doesn’t know how she’s going to feed these children,” Bailey said. “So she came today and she cried, and then she made me cry.”
He said to keep in line with recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control to remain at least six feet apart, the two pretended to hug. He sent her home with meals ready to be made in the microwave or oven.
Credit Glynis Board / WVPB
/
WVPB
Wheeling-based caterer Bob Bailey poses near the lunches he put together for kids out of school.
Bailey is already familiar with how to feed a variety of kids. His business, As You Like It Catering, regularly provides school lunches to Montessori’s, learning centers, preschools and elementary schools.
“We’re prepared. We know the right amount of proteins, grains, vegetables and fruits. So we make all of them balanced,” he said. “We have to follow those if we’re going to do the school lunches so we are providing all of that.”
So far, Bailey has put about 300 meals together. He provides families with enough food to last them through the week and sometimes throws in a little extra. He’s gotten additional requests this week and is now also preparing for next week.
Schools Get Creative
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
/
WVPB
Monongalia County Schools are offering curbside lunch pickups.
The state Department of Education is playing a large role in ensuring students across the state’s 55 counties have access to food while school is out. Clayton Burch, state superintendent of schools, said as of Monday, 505 drop sites are serving meals to kids.
In a news release, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved a waiver application from the West Virginia Office of Child Nutrition to continue feeding students even though school would not be in session. Burch said they are currently working with the National Guard and other community resources like food pantries on how meals would be distributed.
Each school district has been given leeway to develop a plan that suits their individual needs.
“We asked them in a very short time period to come up with a plan to serve all their children who needed meals,” he said. “In some areas it’s a grab and go where you actually come to the school and pick it up. In other areas they’re actually running school busses to school bus stops, families homes, and I think you’ll see even other places where they’re actually tapping into community resources to get those meals out there.”
In Morgantown, Monongalia County Schools is providing curbside pickup of hot lunches between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Monday through Friday, at all of the district’s 17 schools.
morgantown_for_web.mp3
Listen to reporter Brittany Patterson's dispatch from Morgantown High School.
“During these uncertain times, we’re not sure what will happen from day to day or minute to minute, and this gives, I think, a little bit of comfort to students that they know they can come to their school and still get a school lunch,” said Brian Kiehl, director of child nutrition for Monongalia County schools.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
/
WVPB
A hot lunch being provided by Monongalia County Schools during school closures.
Kiehl said the staff is still figuring out how many lunches to make each day during the coronavirus closure. They handed out about 400 meals on Monday, more than 900 on Tuesday and about 1,500 on Wednesday. On a normal day they make about 6,500.
In the Eastern Panhandle, schools in Berkeley, Jefferson, Morgan, Mineral, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant and Pendleton counties are all providing their K-12 students free breakfast and lunch through this closure period — regardless of whether they normally receive free meals.
Some counties in the Eastern Panhandle and Potomac Highlands region are offering meals-to-go at all of their school locations — while others have centralized food pick up at specific schools. Additionally, like Morgantown, some counties are offering delivery services by utilizing bus routes.
Officials say students from the Eastern Panhandle region may pick up meals at anyschool in their county offering grab-and-go meals, regardless of whether they attend that school or not.
And at least three counties, Grant, Berkeley and Jefferson, say they’ll feed any child, ages 1-18, if they show up at one of their pick up locations.
Patrick Murphy, Berkeley County superintendent of schools, said schools play a pivotal role in the well-being of their communities.
“I think as a community agency we … have a responsibility to make sure people are safe, and we have the element of being able to provide them meals and nutrition,” he said.
ep_for_web.mp3
Listen to WVPB's Liz McCormick reporting from the Eastern Panhandle.
Specific lists for pick up locations in all eight of the Eastern Panhandle counties are posted on county board websites, can be found via social media or by calling their county education board.
‘We Are Ready’
Across the state, there are also grassroots efforts bubbling up to make sure kids don’t go hungry.
Several Facebook groups have formed to help coordinate these efforts and connect volunteers, faith leaders, bus drivers, school cafeteria workers and local chefs. One group, called WV Food ER, began with two people, but in the past several days, the group has evolved into an effort by more than 2,000 people to assist local school systems ensure that children are being fed.
fooder_for_web.mp3
Listen to reporter Roxy Todd.
“Bus drivers and school service personnel are like all about this,” said Elizabeth Brunello, one of the coordinators of the group. “They see their responsibility to just step forward and it’s pretty amazing to see.”
She said in rural areas, it can be challenging to ensure food is being delivered to children in need.
Communities across the Southern Coalfields know this challenge well. Many have come together to work it out, and many say, this is nothing new.
Credit McDowell County Schools Facebook
/
Welch Elementary School Principal Dr. Kristy East out delivering food to families this week.
“Well, let me tell you, this is McDowell County. We stay in disaster mode every day. So you know, we’re, we are ready,” said Linda McKinney who runs McDowell County’s Five Loaves and Two Fishes food pantry.
McKinney typically serves 1,200 people a month and expects that number to go up. In two days, 76 families requested food, which she said averages to about 500 people. To avoid large gatherings, she is having people pick up food by appointment only.
But getting that food down to the region is not necessarily easy with businesses shutting down and people being advised to stay home. This is where the National Guard comes in. Major Holli Nelson said the guard is collaborating with the West Virginia Department of Education to streamline food distribution throughout the state, but especially to the southern part of the state.
“We are very rural in how our population lives,” Nelson said. “We have a lot of mountains that we have to deal with. There’s connectivity issues, getting the word out of how to best push the information out to those who need it most.”
The Department of Education is also directly collaborating with staff in the coalfields to identify areas of high need, as options like bussing food to kids can be uniquely challenging in the southern region, according to Amanda Harrison, executive director of the Office of Child Nutrition.
“Late last week, our state experienced flooding in certain locations, and so we have to consider safety in terms of routes that are being taken,” she said.
There are also examples of people providing food on a very local level, not in an official state-directed capacity.
southernMP3.mp3
Caitlin Tan reports from the Southern Coalfields.
That includes Spencer’s Catering and Carry-out, also in McDowell County. It is a mom and daughter-owned business that is usually open Friday and Saturday. But this week, manager Ashley Spencer said they provided lunch and home food deliveries Monday and Tuesday, adding that more than 50 kids came in to eat on Monday.
“Their meals at school are the only meals they have, so I definitely wanted to make sure Monday we were ready to go, because they had the weekend and a lot of them didn’t have food,” Spencer said.
In Boone County, Mick Frye, senior pastor of the Fountain of Life Worship Center, said they are providing a free hot lunch for kids and families, no questions asked.
“Spaghetti, we got string cheese, a little bit of yogurt, some carrots and then also, you know, some ice cream, something like that, just something kids like,” Frye said.
Credit Roxy Todd / WVPB
/
WVPB
The church has a bus ministry that provides free transportation to church service and Frye said that is helping them reach out to families who they know need food right now.
He said he is quite hopeful that kids will get fed in the Southern Coalfields.
“You know, we know poverty, and people have always been willing to reach out and even when times were rough, you know, West Virginia and southern West Virginians have always known how to get through those things because we just come together and help each other,” Frye said.
So although coronavirus is a very new type of crisis to hit the region, many southern West Virginians said this is nothing new, that the resiliency of the communities will help see them through this pandemic and maybe they can even be a model, again, for other communities throughout the country.
This story is part of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Southern Coalfields Reporting Project which is supported by a grant from the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.
Paying taxes is one of those things we just can’t avoid… except for the local tax measures we get to vote on. One of the best examples is school spending. When local school officials ask for additional money for new academic programs or school buildings, taxpayers must approve it. There’s one man who has worked with citizen’s groups in dozens of places to fight against more money for public schools. He’s been successful in many places and his efforts highlight the Us & Them in all of these communities.
For this episode, Trey speaks with APM Educate producer Alex Baumhardt about her time getting to know the “Bond Buster.”
The West Virginia School Building Authority has voted to fund more than $72 million in facilities projects statewide.
Monday’s vote includes construction and renovation projects for public school systems in 19 counties.
Among the funding is $11 million for construction of a new prekindergarten through eighth-grade school in the Monroe County community of Peterstown. It includes an additional commitment of more than $10 million next year.
Fayette County will receive $6.6 million along with a commitment for similar funding next year to upgrade and renovate its school system.
Also included are more than $9 million each for improvements in Clay and Ohio counties.
West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine told reporters Thursday afternoon that all nine days of the recent teacher and school employee work stoppage would need to be made up by each county school district. However, counties will have control and flexibility on how they do it.
Paine said counties can either eliminate spring break, add additional days to the end of the school year, or use something known as Accrued Instructional Time, which made its way into state law last year.
Accrued Instructional Time allows counties to add 30 minutes of extra time at the end of a school day, but it can only be used to make-up five days. Counties will have to mix-and-match to meet the nine missed days.
“The nine days are nine days, let’s be clear,” Paine noted, “They missed nine. They were paid for nine. They must make up nine days of instruction.”
Paine said it’ll be up to each district how those days are made up and notes the requirement to make up the days has not been a point of contention among teachers and service staff.
He also said any changes to school calendars will not impact graduation dates.
About 1,000 iPad tablet computers have not been recovered by a school system in West Virginia over the past three school years.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the Kanawha County Board of Education learned Thursday that 1,269 out of just over 15,000 iPads were not recovered. Officials say the county sees about a 2.8 percent annual loss, with the largest source coming from student transfers.
The school system’s technology director Leah Sparks says the number should decrease as students continue to turn in tablets.
She says starting this year, the tablets will include a new feature allowing the county to pinpoint the location of the device. Eventually, the location of the missing tablets will be given to authorities.
