MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The 10 a.m. DHHR report has moved Mon County from red to orange, it’s the first time for the county to be out of the red since the color coded map system has been in place.
The county is now below the 25 cases per 100,000 threshold for red at 23.27.
The changing metrics give Mon County deputy superintendent hope that teachers and students can return to the classroom soon. But, if map were to go to gold this Saturday, the switch to the blended option would still be one week away.
“We’re going to commit to one more final week of remote learning,”Talerico said on WAJR’s Ask the Educators,”Then if need be, and if the colors indicate we will pivot to our blended model program.”
The blended option rotates half of the student population every other day to reduce the numbers in each building. Talerico says the move blended learning will get teachers somewhat back to normal and described their current workspace.
“They have a couple of computers in front of them, they have a microphone,”Talerico said,”They have all the attributes that I see in this radio station.”
The county is benefiting from the governor’s $6 million plan to install 1,000 WiFi hotspots at school, libraries and state parks. Mon County School officials have taken that a step further by outfitting 17 busses with hotspots and positioning them throughout the county. These plans, combined with Chromebooks keep students learning and teachers teaching.
“That’s the beauty of the Chromebook,”Talerico said,”You don’t have to have the immediate connectivity, you can download it and complete it after that.”
If Mon County remains orange, or even becomes gold Saturday night it will have immediate implications according to Talerico.
“I believe everyone will be watching closely at 5 p.m. Saturday,”Talerico said,”I think some of our coaches would be ready for a practice Saturday evening.”
More importantly, the move to gold would also mean in-person classes could resume for the first time in almost seven months.
“Seventy percent of our families had indicated on their survey they would like that blended model of have the children in school,”Talerico said,”And nothing replaces the face-to-face instruction with really good educators.”