Levy County Education Association President Melody Carson said the top priority for teachers is getting paid, but she said teachers that work in combination blended and traditional classrooms should be compensated if they work beyond their usual hours.

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            A majority of Levy County students will return to traditional school classrooms on Aug. 17 but some will remain home to learn in virtual classrooms due to concerns about the COVID-19 virus.

            The Levy County School Board Wednesday moved the start of school from Aug. 10 to Aug. 17 to give teachers time to develop lesson plans and adjust to new procedures in a year that’s likely to be different than any other in history.

            School district administrators and staff have managed to contact 78.2 percent of the parents to find out how many plan to send their kids back to the traditional classroom setting and how many will choose other options.

            As it stands now, 14 percent of parents contacted have chosen to keep their kids home to learn through a blend of traditional and online learning programs known as the innovation approach.

            Seven percent of parents are choosing to keep their children home to learn in a strictly virtual classroom rather than sending them to a traditional school setting. Those students must have access to reliable internet.

            The remaining students will go back to the traditional classroom setting on brick and mortar campuses across the county.

            Mobile Internet Bus Hotspots

            One of the most unusual changes this year is that buses can be deployed at locations around the county to serve as hotspots for internet downloading of student lesson plans. The district bought the equipment earlier this year with a grant and cooperation of the Levy County Schools Foundation.

            “We have four that we can use in a generous partnership with the school’s foundation. Currently, our plan for that, is if we need to, we can deploy them on a schedule throughout the district for students to use to download whatever lessons from Canvas,” said Morgan Bennett, the district information technology director. Canvas is a learning management software program that will permit the use of buses as mobile internet hotspots. Students could also use another option. They could go to the parking lot of school and download lesson plans off the school’s Wi-Fi system, according to Superintendent Jeff Edison.

            Administrators at the district level are in constant meetings trying to coordinate the three different learning options into one system for the coming school year.

            Plenty of What-Ifs

            Everyone is expecting glitches; just how many isn’t known.

            “We’re paddling real hard right now. There’s a lot of things going on and a lot of moving parts,” said Edison. “Everybody is working hard. We got a lot of what-ifs. We don’t have a lot of answers to them. We’re working on trying to find the answers to a lot of what-ifs.”

            School Board member Ashley Clemenzi asked if a health department official could attend a board meeting to talk to board members. Edison responded that his staff has been in discussions with the health department about school reopening.

            Edison said he is scheduling a “what if” meeting to discuss a lot of the unanswered questions about reopening schools. The health department will be part of the discussions.

            School Board member Cameron Asbell agreed with Clemenzi that a health department official should talk to the board.  Asbell said he may have questions that Edison and his people probably didn’t think about.

            “I still would like to see someone from the health department talk to us. “You’re what if meeting might not bring up my what-ifs. I’m not knocking you. Like I said, the first time I brought it up I talked and got five different answers off one scenario,” Asbell said. “They can’t all be right. Somewhere there is the right answer and I don’t know the answers. I don’t pretend to know the answers.”

            Board member Chris Cowart thanked administrators and staff for managing to contact 78 percent of the parents to find out which educational option they preferred. He urged school district staff and administration to continue reaching out to the other 22 percent of the parents that haven’t been contacted. He said the district is doing planning for the upcoming school year and needs to know which option parents choose.

             “I think it’s been a major task. Parents have had to make choices. I am a parent that has had to choose option 1, 2, or 3 and to struggle with it and think about it. I have friends who are teachers who are going through what they are going through learning something,” Cowart said. “Every single year something gets tweaked in education and every single year they rise to the challenge and they do what is needed for our students and I appreciate that.”

            Cowart asked Transportation Director Gary Masters to update the board on how his department is preparing the fleet of buses and the drivers for the new school year.

            Masters said school ridership is already down, but he said ridership will drop even more this year. When the new school year arrives he estimates a 77 passenger school bus would function at about 55 percent capacity and he said that doesn’t account for parents who may choose to transport their kids to school.

            Among the new rules and procedures on school buses:

• Family members will sit together because they have already been exposed to each other.
• Bus drivers will work at encouraging social distancing on the buses as much as possible.
• If a student shows symptoms of any kind, they will be asked to wear a mask and will be isolated in the right front seat. The bus driver will radio ahead and ask a nurse to meet the bus. The student will come off the bus right away.
• When a student steps on the bus there will be hand sanitizer available and they will be asked to keep their mask on and use the sanitizer.
• Between the morning and afternoon routes and after the afternoon routes, buses will be thoroughly cleaned and sprayed with sanitizer.
• Weather permitting every other window will be opened one notch to allow fresh air to circulate through the bus even in air-conditioned buses.
• All bus drivers will be trained on how to clean and sanitize their buses.

            “I feel good about the way we are starting the year. I feel good about our ability to social distance to the degree possible,” Masters said.

            Cowart said the more the district can educate and communicate those facts to employees, bus drivers, school aides, custodians, parents, and students, the better for everyone involved.

            “I appreciate your efforts on that,” Cowart said.

            Board member Brad Etheridge said there are a lot of unknowns going into the school year. He said he is certain not every student will be prepared for the first day of school and he said some teachers have struggled. But he said things have begun coming together this past week. School district staff and teachers have pulled together the past few days.

            “I know there are still a thousand more questions to be answered. There aren’t answers to all of those questions, and the answers to half of them won’t be correct two weeks from now. I just hope the community, parents and teachers work together,” Etheridge said.

            Cowart said one of the things the district and Levy County Education Association can count on this year is that paychecks aren’t going to be delayed. He said that’s not the case in some school districts. He received a text Tuesday from a banking institution that stretches to the south end of the state indicating some districts aren’t giving out paychecks due to delays in reopening. He said it can be rough for education employees who have a 10-month contract and have to stretch their income for two months.

            “When you’re a 10-month employee and you’re going through two months and you are trying to budget your yearly stuff, I appreciate you guys doing that,” Cowart said.

            Melody Carson, president of the Levy County Education Association, the teacher’s union, said her members don’t want any interference with the payroll.

            “We discussed that payroll would not be interfered with at all because that is the number one concern of our employees,” she said.

            Carson said the district also needs to make sure teachers are paid if they are asked to work beyond their normal hours due to blended teaching combined with traditional classroom teaching.

            “We just need to make sure if we have a teacher that’s teaching blended and regular classroom, that they are being compensated for that extra work for that length of time,” she said.

              Etheridge said he was an early proponent of getting back to school after the COVID-19 shutdown at the end of last year. He pushed back when people questioned his stance on the issue, but he lightened up after taking some calls.

              “When I got the first phone call about this I pushed back because I’ve been pushing to get back in school, but the people who were calling were saying help, help, help. I get it, I do,” Etheridge said. “There’s a time when you get phone calls from someone you never got phone calls from before and they say help us. I understand the need.”

              Etheridge and other board members voted unanimously to start the school year on Aug. 17 rather than Aug. 10, but Etheridge made it clear he wouldn’t vote for additional delays in reopening schools.

NOTE: Parents who have questions about school reopening can go to the Levy County School Board Facebook Page. The school district has posted a list of questions and answers regarding the school reopening. Many of the questions were provided by parents.

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School Board of Levy County Emergency Meeting July 29, 2020; Posted July 31, 2020