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VV Principals Discuss Plans To Return Kids To School

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

Principals of Virgin Valley schools have pulled out the plans they worked on last month before the beginning of school. They are dusting them off, polishing them up and making updates in preparation of submitting them again to Clark County School District (CCSD) administrators in Las Vegas for approval.

The hope is to have kids back in live instruction classrooms by the middle of next month. Virgin Valley schools have been using an all-online virtual learning model since school started on Aug. 24 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

At a report given to the Virgin Valley Community Education Advisory Board (VVCEAB) on Wednesday, Sept. 9, principals said that they had been meeting with their CCSD superiors discussing detailed plans to bring kids back to the classroom. The target date for this is October 12, which is the start of the second quarter of the school year.

“There are a lot of logistics and requirements that have to be fleshed out on this,” said J.L. Bowler Elementary principal Chris Jenkins. “But we feel like October 12 would be manageable to start.”

VVCEAB successes
Principals credited the work of the VVCEAB in opening up this discussion with district officials. Earlier this month, the board hosted a special meeting with CCSD superintendent Jesus Jara to urge a return of students to classrooms.
In that meeting, board members grilled Jara for nearly an hour over why the earlier plans to bring kids back to local schools had been denied by CCSD central administration. Jara’s response was that the local plans did not align with the three options CCSD had submitted to the State Board of Education.

In the days after that meeting, VVCEAB sent a letter to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jhone Ebert, requesting that a special plan for Mesquite schools be considered, separate from the rest of CCSD. The response from Ebert was promising.

“She got back to us the next day and said that, as long as our plan was compliant with State directives, there was absolutely no reason that we should not be allowed to have a Mesquite plan,” said VVCEAB member Steven Lisk in an interview last week. “She also said that she had already had a conversation with Dr. Jara and had implored him to work with us to get through the process of implementation.”

This sequence of VVCEAB actions had set the stage for a reconsideration of the local plans to bring kids back into the schools.
Principals were appreciative and enthusiastic about this VVCEAB accomplishment.

“This board has done a great job of setting the groundwork,” said Jenkins. “The meeting with Superintendent Jara and the letter to Dr. Ebert; we wouldn’t be having these conversation if not for them.”

VVHS principal Riley Frei also gave kudos to the board. “I can tell you that democracy at its finest was on display with this group right here,” he said. “You held a government entity accountable and you asked hard questions and required answers. Because of that we have an opportunity to effect change. Thank you for that and the classy way that you went about it.”

VVHS plan
Frei said that the four local schools had coordinated together carefully so that a unified community plan could be implemented. Each school took a slightly different approach based on the age group of students and the conditions on the ground. But the plans meshed well together as a community of schools, he said.

At the high school, the eight period block schedule now in effect would continue to move forward, Frei said.
But to comply with the requirement to maintain no more than 50 percent capacity at the school, the student body would be divided into two cohorts: one a.m. and one p.m.. with a period in between for disinfecting classrooms.

Students would attend school on Mondays and Tuesdays; and again on Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesday would be left open for deep cleaning of the facility and for teacher prep time.

Class periods would be 40 minutes each with additional online work required of students during their out-of-classroom time each day. Frei referred to this as a “flipped classroom model.”
“It is basically that the teacher introduces the materials that they want students to learn,” Frei explained.

“The kids read the material at home, look up all the resources, so that when they come back to class they have done as much work as they possibly can. That way, the 40 minutes spent live with the teacher will be as effective as it possibly can be.”

Plans for Hughes M.S.
Hughes Middle School principal Maurice Perkins said that his facility could probably handle its entire student population to come to school in one cohort.
The building capacity is 820 students at the middle school, he said. Current enrollment is 540.

That number wouldn’t qualify on its own. But preliminary data gathered before school started showed that enough students preferred an all-online model that the remaining students would fit within the 410 limit for 50 percent capacity.

“If that proves to be true we can bring back kids that want to come without a break for am/pm cohorts,” Perkins said.

If the community plans are approved, Perkins said that updated parent input would be needed quickly to determine if the 50 percent threshhold could still be met.
“If all 550 kids want to come back, we might have to look at a back up plan using an a.m./p.m. structure,” Perkins said. “But we will need parent response when the time comes to determine that.”

Elementary schools return
Both elementary schools had worked out similar plans for returning to classrooms. The student population at each school would be divided into two cohorts.

The first would come in the morning, get breakfast and attend classes. On their way out they would take a grab-and-go lunch home with them. Those kids would continue their school work online at home during the day.

The second group would spend the morning doing virtual learning. They would come to school at around lunch time and eat lunch at school. Then they would have in-person instruction in the classroom. At the end of the school day, they would take breakfast home with them for the following day.

Special Education plans
VVCEAB members asked what plans would be in place for bringing back special education students. They were particularly concerned about the “self-contained” students who don’t spend instructional time with the general population of the school.

The principals responded that all schools were prepared to bring those students back for full-day, in-person instruction. This could be done while adhering to the 50 percent capacity rule, they said.

Going forward
As of last week, the principals were still waiting for the go-ahead from CCSD central officials to begin implementing the plans. Frei said that, in all the conversations with supervisors, it was still unclear whether the decision to move forward could be made by the Superintendent, or whether it would require Board of Trustee approval.

Frei urged the VVCEAB to continue to ask questions of CCSD officials about it.
“Continue extending those questions,” he said. “Ask what’s happening. Tell them that you’ve heard that the principals have talked with them and ask about it. We need answers quickly so that we can start getting things ready. So if you would continue to do that it would help us out.”

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