Tag: Virtual School

Union Leaders Allege Schools Not Safe To Reopen As State Defends Response

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Salango and union leaders in West Virginia education say Gov. Jim Justice and state officials are not doing enough for a safe reopening of schools next week. 

The West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and gubernatorial candidate Salango held a press conference Wednesday in Charleston citing concerns that several schools across the state are not yet safe enough to open next week.

Fred Albert, president of AFT-West Virginia, said over a Facebook Live broadcast that the greatest concern is aging school buildings in West Virginia that do not have proper ventilation, which Albert said is “vital to mitigating the virus.”

“Our teachers and service personnel miss their students,” Albert said. “We want to return to teaching and to learning, but it must be safe. Our elected leaders have only a few days left to put the proper safety measures and resources in place.”

Albert argued that many teachers have reached out to him and AFT-West Virginia claiming they still do not have personal protective equipment available.

In a https://youtu.be/BELroCe8hY8″>virtual press briefing Wednesday with Justice and other state leaders, the governor said there is money available through the CARES Act for any resources still needed at West Virginia’s more than 600 public schools.

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch echoed the governor and said he and his staff are “triple checking” to make sure schools have what they need. He said he communicates frequently with county superintendents.

“The governor’s assured us that at no point in time should I be shy coming to him to ask for any dollars that I need,” Burch said in the press briefing. “I’ve got Gen. Hoyer, Secretary Crouch completely backing us up. We’ve got over 2 million face coverings stockpiled, ready to be used.”

Burch did not directly mention the AFT press conference that occurred Wednesday morning, but he did mention Albert and said he feels frustrated “when we continue to hear folks go on and publicly continue to say that our teachers and our schools aren’t ready, and that happened [Wednesday].”

“My door has been open, since day one, March 13, I’ve never closed my door,” Burch said. “My door has been open to anybody who wants to discuss return to school, and I’ve appreciated all the voices who have assisted. Whether you’re a parent advocacy group, whether you are folks representing special needs, whether you’re folks representing foster children, or whether you’re one of our teachers’ unions, or service personnel, my door has been continuously open.”

Still, Albert argued during the AFT press conference for more leadership from the governor with clear, consistent procedures on “how staff, parents and students will be notified of potential cases or exposure in schools.”

Salango said in the Facebook Live broadcast there should be more coronavirus testing and more nurses staffed at schools. Salango also claimed that with $6 million, every school in the state could be equipped with temperature scanners.

“We don’t have thermal scanners, temperature scanners, hands free devices in all of our schools,” Salango argued. “That’s something that’s easy to do, easily installed, easily executed.”

Albert is also asking Justice to allow more time for families to sort out childcare needs should a county change color on the re-entry map. He said being notified on a Saturday night does not give families enough time to prepare.

“If we stay in the orange or move to red by Saturday night at 9 p.m., then our parents will be scrambling over the weekend to provide care for their child.”

Albert said families should at least be notified by Fridays at 5 p.m.

West Virginia’s school re-entry is guided by metrics developed by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. It’s based on a four-color system – green, yellow, orange and red. Each county is assigned a color based on the prevalence of COVID-19 within their borders, according to the West Virginia Department of Education.

Both the governor and Burch say school re-opening remains a “fluid” situation, and they are prepared to respond to any scenario.

Schools in West Virginia are set to begin Sept. 8.

From WiFi Hotspots To Video Classrooms: Tackling Virtual School In A Pandemic

Across West Virginia, families have been promised the option of virtual schooling in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. And many families are considering it for fall 2020. About 50,000 children so far in West Virginia have already signed up for virtual school, according to the West Virginia Department of Education.

All 55 of West Virginia’s counties must offer at least one virtual school option, as mandated by Gov. Jim Justice.

Counties can choose to offer West Virginia Virtual School from the West Virginia Department of Education, or a local option structured by that county, or some combination. And in some counties, students will have to stick with their virtual program for a set amount of time.

“Google Classroom allowed for us to be successful during the springtime, at least to get everybody on the same platform. So, we are going to use that for this coming school year,” said Jennifer Rowan, director of technology for Jefferson County Schools, in a Zoom meeting with about 500 student family members last week.

Rowan showed parents in Jefferson County how to use Google Classroom – one of the programs Jefferson County Schools uses for its virtual school called Jefferson Virtual Academy. The public meeting, held by the Jefferson County Board of Education, was aimed to help families, curious about virtual schooling, understand what it would be like.

Jefferson County uses Google Classroom to organize and deliver classes and assignments. Students can type out questions and comments with teachers and classmates in real time. It’s also where they submit work for teachers to grade.

The county also uses an online program called Microsoft Teams, which allows for video conference calls during virtual class. These will also be recorded and available to students if they aren’t able to join when class meets.

Rowan noted that in Jefferson County, lessons will be synced up as close as possible in both virtual and in-person classes. This is in the event school must go entirely virtual because of virus outbreaks.

“It has never been more important than now to adhere to those pacing guides,” Rowan said. “So that if we have to go into a quarantine period, [in-person students] are now at the same type of pace as the Virtual Academy students.”

The county is also committed to providing personal electronic devices, such as iPads, to every student who needs one.

But families in Jefferson County must choose now if they want to go virtual or attend in-person scenarios. The deadline to choose the virtual option is Aug. 19.

If a student in Jefferson County who signed up for in-person schooling decides they want to change to virtual school, they’ll have the option to switch at the end of the fall semester.

Jefferson County’s Virtual Academy is just one example of what virtual schooling might look like this fall in West Virginia. Each county will vary.

Regardless, if parents want their child in virtual school, they have that choice.

“We will have total optionality,” said Justice in a recent virtual press conference. “If you feel like your child should not be in the school, then we’re going to make that child’s education, along with all the children’s education that choose not to come to the schools, virtual, and we will absolutely deliver a quality education to them for the time period that they’ve decided not to come to the school.”

One way Justice is hoping to make virtual school easier for families who choose it is through a broadband expansion initiative called Kids Connect, which is expected to go live by Sept. 8.

According to the governor’s office, 40 percent of West Virginians have access to broadband, so the hotspots will be crucial if virtual school is to be successful.

Justice has committed $6 million to Kids Connect. It creates just a little more than 1,000 WiFi hotspots, spread out across the state in all 55 counties. The project was a collaboration of the governor’s office, the West Virginia Department of Education and the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

These hotspots will be available in parking lots of all K-12 schools, which totals to 688 sites. 32 higher education institutions will offer hotspots, 255 libraries, and 31 of West Virginia’s state parks.

Students will also have access to school buses that will drive them to these hotspots so they can complete their work.

Sarah Armstrong Tucker, who serves as chancellor of both the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and the Community and Technical College System, recently spoke about the initiative at an informal, informational meeting with the House Education Committee in Charleston.

“I think it’s going to make a significant difference,” Tucker said. “If we have to go to a virtual environment, or even a partially virtual environment, our students will know where they can go so that they can connect to the internet.”

The hotspots will also be available to higher education students.

West Virginia’s Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch echoed Tucker at the education meeting but said it’s only the first step into a much larger broadband issue in West Virginia.

“I appreciate the 1,000 points of WiFi that we’re targeting,” Burch said. “I think it’s a great project, but it is a Band-Aid.”

Virtual school this fall will be available to all students in West Virginia, from kindergarten to 12th grade.

School is set to begin in West Virginia on Sept. 8.

W.Va. Teachers' Union Wants Public Schools To Start Online

A West Virginia teachers’ union is urging public schools to avoid face-to-face instruction when students return next month due to the coronavirus.

The West Virginia Education Association suggested the online-only start Thursday based on a survey of the union’s membership.

WVEA President Dale Lee said most of the respondents felt uncomfortable returning to classrooms under their individual county’s reopening plans. In addition, nearly all members were skeptical that students could effectively maintain social distancing and wear masks.

“Full distance learning will give time for counties to get a handle on the situation and to further iron out the details on how the next steps of the school re-entry will be handled in each location,” Lee said.

Gov. Jim Justice has pushed back the start of the school year to Sept. 8. He said recently that a final decision on the reopening would have to be made by Sept. 1.

Last month American Federation of Teachers’ state chapter president Fred Albert expressed doubt that face-to-face instruction could occur safely based on health trends.

The number of virus-related deaths in West Virginia has jumped 23% since last Friday, pushing the total for the pandemic to at least 153. Confirmed cases in West Virginia have tripled in the past seven weeks to more than 8,150.

Lee said two-thirds of WVEA educators consider themselves at risk due to health, age or caregiver concerns.

“We understood that every county and their individual schools are unique in each circumstance,” he said. ”But safety for the employees and the students should be foremost everywhere. One outbreak of the virus is one outbreak too many. And starting before we are truly prepared will simply force shutdowns and create additional anxiety and uncertainty.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe symptoms and be fatal. The vast majority of people recover.

Group Demands W.Va. Governor, Education Leaders Start School Virtually This Fall

A coalition of teachers and public school advocates are asking for West Virginia schools to start remotely for the first 14 days with in-person instruction beginning only after 14 consecutive days of no new coronavirus cases in the state.

The Our Students First Coalition also wants state officials to allow students to return to in-person learning – on a county-by-county basis – if cases drop to zero in certain areas.

The group held a demonstration and press conference outside the West Virginia Education building in Charleston Wednesday to advocate for remote learning at the start of the 2020 school year.

“We hear over and over, [students] are safest in the school, but I disagree,” said Jenny Anderson, co-head of the Our Students First Coalition, as their protest was broadcast over Facebook Live. “They’re not safest in the school now. They could be. But not now.”

About a dozen members of the group stood together on the Capitol lawn, six feet apart, wearing masks and holding poster boards that represented desks in a classroom – giving a visual example of what classrooms might look like if the school year begins in person, as planned.

“There are going to be teachers that get sick and other school staff,” Anderson said. “It’s not fair to put the burden on the people that are not making the decisions.”

The coalition has more than 5,000 followers made up of members from the WV United Caucus, the Families Leading Change West Virginia group and others, according to Anderson. The group is also partnered with several groups, including local chapters of the American Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

Jay O’Neal also leads the coalition alongside Anderson. He is an educator in Kanawha County and pointed to safety concerns including ventilation. He said many schools in West Virginia are too old and not ready to accommodate in-person schooling without first updating ventilation systems.

“I teach at Westside Middle School. I teach in a building that’s 80 years old, [and] a lot of the windows don’t open,” O’Neal said. “The air conditioning just recycles air from the classroom. It doesn’t pull in any outside air … so we’re concerned.”

Other speakers chimed in, pleading for the state’s leaders to take more time to not only better equip classrooms and school buildings but also perfect remote learning in a state where broadband is not always reliable.

O’Neal said the coalition submitted more than 1,700 letters about these issues to Gov. Jim Justice and state education leaders who so far advocate for a hybrid of in-person and remote learning this fall.

The governor and state leaders, however, have said that should school need to go totally virtual this fall, they are prepared to accept that scenario.

“We absolutely will do everything in our power to not put our kids and our teachers or our service personnel into any situation that we feel is unsafe,” said Justice on Monday. “We may very well back up and say we can’t go to school now, [and] we’ve got to go 100 percent virtual … I’m telling you, this situation changes, not weekly or monthly; this situation changes almost hourly.”

Other demands by the Our Students First Coalition include training for parents and educators in virtual schooling, waiving the 180-instructional-days requirement for the 2020/2021 school year, and providing regular, free and widespread coronavirus testing for staff and students.

West Virginia’s public schools are slated to begin in-person instruction, with virtual options, as ordered by the governor, on Sept. 8.

W.Va. Authorizes Online Public School

West Virginia has authorized its county school boards to offer virtual school, where students in kindergarten through high school can learn online.

Under the law approved by the Legislature and Gov. Jim Justice, a county board or a multi-county consortium can create a virtual instruction program and contract with online education providers starting July 1.

Elementary school students from kindergarten through fifth grade won’t be allowed until the program has operated for one full school year.

The law requires counting eligible students in the school district’s enrollment for determining state aid and subjecting them to the same state assessment requirements as other students to receive a diploma.

It allows them to participate in school sports and other extracurricular activities as well as “blended programs” with both classroom and online learning.

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