School Board work session covers student cell phones, special ed, COVID-19 strategies

The work session portion of the Warren County School Board’s Wednesday, March 16 meeting focused on discussions around student cell phone use, the school division’s annual special education plan, lifting pandemic mitigation strategies, virtual learning options, and a code of conduct for board members.

WCPS Director of Special Services Michael Hirsch prepares to detail the school division’s annual special education plan for the Warren County School Board on March 16. Photos and video by Mike McCool.

Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) Director of Special Services Michael Hirsch presented the School Board with the draft 2022-2023 Special Education Annual Plan, “which is basically an application for federal funds to support special education,” he said.

The WCPS annual special ed plan will be submitted to the Virginia Department of Education’s Division of Special Education and Student Services. The state will provide the school division with special ed funding once it receives Virginia’s portion of federal special education dollars.

The WCPS annual plan, which is available for public review through March 21, includes four parts: Assurance and certification; Interagency Jail Agreement; Report on implementation of 2020-2021 plan; and Application for Federal Funds. Hirsch said that the Special Education Advisory Committee “wholeheartedly endorsed the annual plan” during its March 14 meeting.

Hirsch detailed each part of the annual plan. For instance, the Interagency Jail Agreement component requires recertification. “Because there is a jail in the jurisdiction of Warren County, we’re committed to serving inmates with disabilities ages 18 to 22 with special education services,” he said. “We have a full-time teacher in the jail with a computer lab without internet.”

The last part of plan, which is the actual application for federal funds, shows that the WCPS allocation of proposed grants funds will total $1,235,532 for K-12 students with disabilities and $31,841 for preschool students with disabilities.

The federal dollars offset what the state and Warren County are providing to support these students, Hirsch said, and the monies will “100 percent fund teacher salaries.”

These are projected funds because the state will get a revised allocation from the federal government after July 1, explained WCPS Superintendent Christopher Ballenger, who said the WCPS special education budget number then will go either up or down depending on what flows through.

“It’s not us telling them what we need; it’s them telling us what they’re going to give us,” Ballenger said, adding that WCPS would be responsible for any salaries over the allotted amount of funds.
WCPS also supports private-school and home-schooled students and works diligently to locate all eligible students with disabilities ages 2-22 in the County, said Hirsch, adding that WCPS also provides speech and language services, vision services, and services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students to these students.

COVID-19 cases drop
Hirsch also provided School Board members with an update on the WCPS COVID-19 Mitigation Health Plan for school year 2021-2022.

As of March 14, there were zero active student cases and just one student was quarantined. “We have no active cases in the school division,” said Hirsch. “Seems like we’ve been waiting a long time to say that.”

In response, WCPS has created a Phase Zero for its plan that resumes normal school operations. Under Phase 0, face coverings are optional for students, staff, and visitors. Face coverings are not required on school buses or in vehicles, according to the plan, although student temperatures will continue to be scanned as they enter the bus.

Additionally, Phase Zero dictates that contract tracing and quarantine protocols remain in place, as does routine COVID cleaning.

“So, it is operations as normal, however, we still want to use our quarantine and isolation protocols if need be and we still want to do cleaning at the level of COVID,” said Hirsch.

Water fountains also will be turned back on, and the replacement of their water filters is ongoing. “We still want to get rid of them and just have bottled water available,” he added.

Ballenger said he recently informed principals that social distancing is no longer required so students may be pulled back into small groups, for instance.

Student cell phone use
Following some discussion, School Board Chair Kristen Pence requested that Ballenger develop a survey to be distributed to WCPS administrators, teachers, and students asking questions about the current use of cell phones by students; whether such use is a problem and/or disruption in each school; and how such issues might be rectified.

Pence said board members have received communication from parents and teachers alike about how disruptive student cell phones can be and wants the board to determine what it can do to try and cut back on such use in WCPS.

Ballenger, who provided the board an explanation and summary of policy from the WCPS Code of Conduct, said, “cell phones are one of the things we are challenged with on a daily basis.”
The superintendent said that some teachers allow their use while others do not. For instance, at Warren County Middle School, some students must check in and turn over their cell phones when they enter school each day. “It’s a process; we’re talking about somebody’s personal property,” he said. “It can be challenging at times.”

School Board member Antoinette Funk asked about what rules and expectations exist for the use of cell phones by staff and teachers. Ballenger said they vary by school because each has an individual handbook. He said that the division is working on developing a division-wide handbook.

WCPS Superintendent Christopher Ballenger discusses online teacher staffing issues with board members.

The School Board also again discussed adopting a code of conduct for its members and Ballenger, in preparation for the 2022-2023 school year, explained the staffing issues impacting WCPS in offering virtual learning options.

To watch the School Board’s March 16 meeting in its entirety, go to the exclusive Royal Examiner video here.

Warren County School Board approves draft WCPS budget for 2022-2023