Schools superintendent reviews COVID-19, bus capacity, pre-budget

Active COVID-19 cases in Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) currently stand at 10 students and 11 teachers, reported WCPS Superintendent Chris Ballenger during the Warren County School Board’s Wednesday, February 3 regular meeting and work session.

Since Sept. 8, 2020, when school started, WCPS has had a total of 69 positive student cases and 47 positive staff cases, said Ballenger, while 491 students and over 113 staff members have been quarantined since that date.

“The spread has been low within the community,” he said, citing the success of the school division’s mitigation strategies and contract tracing undertaken by school administrators, teachers, staff, and parents. “We have had no community spread at all within the school system as of the date that we have identified” active cases,” Ballenger added.

The superintendent also reported that WCPS has scheduled remote learning days for all students on February 11 and 12, 2021, so that all divisional staff members may receive the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. All schools will return to their normal schedule for the 2020-2021 school year on February 16, 2021. To date, Ballenger said WCPS is approximately 65 percent vaccinated.

Virtual days also could be possible for all students depending on the weather, said Ballenger. “This is the time of year when weather can impact school and we’ll err on the side of caution,” he said, noting that WCPS will move to virtual days if needed, “unless the weather is so severe, we cannot get staff into the building to use internet service. We want to make sure everybody is safe, and that we can provide quality education to the best of our ability.”

WCPS also is considering whether to increase capacity on its buses during the ongoing pandemic, according to Ballenger, who said that other school districts in the region, like Clarke County, are already doing so while also keeping their COVID-19 mitigation strategies in place. “The overall goal is to increase in-person days for middle school and high school,” he said. “We are currently looking at this ourselves to see if we need to adjust and move toward more in-person days.”

Regarding virtual education, Front Royal, Va., resident Richard Baker told School Board members during the community participation segment of their Wednesday night regular meeting that during the pandemic over the last year, he has had a chance to talk to many middle and high school students about virtual education and how it works.

“I would ask them how much time a day they spend working on it, and invariably the answer I would get was ‘oh, about an hour.’ I don’t know what the requirement is on a daily basis, but I’ve heard ‘about an hour’ many times from kids down at the gazebo,” said Baker, explaining, “I’m the guy you all usually always see walking and smoking my pipe all the time.”

Baker, who said he was a teacher for three years in Marion County, Fla., before being laid off after 9/11, said he just wanted to pass along the information he’s heard to the School Board. “While this may be what you call anecdotal, it does strike me as interesting that I’m getting that response over a fairly long period of time,” he said. “I don’t completely understand the program, but I don’t think you’re getting a whole lot done in an hour.”

More from Ballenger
During the School Board’s work session — which followed a closed session to discuss a WCPS personnel issue — the members received fiscal year (FY) 2022 pre-budget information from Superintendent Ballenger.

WCPS is “still working on our numbers, so what was presented to the board can and will probably change over the next week,” Ballenger wrote in a Thursday night email sent to the Royal Examiner. “We will have an approved document at the Feb. 17th meeting that will outline our initiatives and provide explanations for expenditures and revenue.”

Also, to be discussed during the board’s February 17 meeting will be the renewal of both the foodservice management contract and the custodial management contract that WCPS currently has with Sodexo Operations, LLC to manage those operations for the school division. Melody Sheppard, WCPS assistant superintendent for administration, explained on Wednesday that no motion from the board was necessary as the contracts will be presented at the February 17 School Board meeting for consideration.

Additionally, during the superintendent’s report, Ballenger told the School Board that the division’s Strategic Planning Committee has met a few times and this week discussed vision statements for the upcoming WCPS strategic plan. He provided two vision examples. The first is: Engage, Educate, Empower, Equality, Every Student, Every Day; and the second is: Learning through Inspiration, Empowerment, and Innovation. These vision statements will help the committee members create mission statements for the final strategic plan, which will go before the School Board once completed, he said.

Ballenger also presented a certificate of recognition to each School Board member from the Virginia School Board Association acknowledging appreciation for their dedication and service to education excellence.

Action taken
There was one action item presented by WCPS Director of Secondary Instruction Alan Fox, who requested approval of the 2021-2022 Program of Studies (POS).

Fox pointed out that since the initial reading of the POS during the board’s last meeting in January, course descriptions were added for three more new courses: Information Technology Fundamentals, African American Studies, and Criminal Justice I, which is expected to be a very well-received course. “If it goes as well as we think it will, we will return with Criminal Justice II,” Fox said.

The School Board voted unanimously to accept the POS, with all members present, including Board Chairman Arnold Williams Jr., Vice Chairwoman Catherine Bower, and members Kristen Pence, Ralph Rinaldi, and James Wells.

Watch the School Board meeting here.