Mon County Schools hope for normalcy

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Approximately 12,000 Mon County School students are wrapping up their fourth week of in-person learning and are hopeful the case count will lower so classrooms can open for the first time in seven months.

In order to prepare staff, classrooms and teachers there will be a “buffer” week before the return to in-person learning when Mon County moves out of orange into gold or yellow.

“If we slip into gold, barely into gold and then slip out next week based on COVID fluctuations then we’re back to remote the following week,”Mon County School Board vice president Ron Lytle said on WAJR’s Talk of the Town,”We’re really making it tough on our people to have a consistent model.”

As of Wednesday, September 23 Mon County was orange with 19.21 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, according to the DHHR map based on the Harvard Global Health Institute metric. A drop to 14.99 cases per 100,000 would move the county into gold.

Administrators, staff and teachers have been developing plans that are constantly changing while still trying to maintain consistency and reliability for families.

“We have 12,000 kids and they all have a somewhat individual education, especially when you get to the high school level,”Lytle said,”Delivering that education to everyone of those kids is a challenge, it’s a challenge in normal times.”

Lytle expressed high praise for the flexibility and creativity shown by the staff during the switch to remote learning in the spring and preparation for the unknown.

“This has been been a six or seven month, 200 days constantly trying to figure out how to best deliver education to the kids of Mon County,”Lytle said.

Testing, finding the asyptomatic people and contact tracing are the quickest way to bring school back, and the community at-large plays a role in that, according to Lytle.

“We need to drive this number down, drive down to get active schools and drive it down to get heathly as a county,”Lytle said,”It’s so important for people to hear that over and over-go get tested.”

Free testing will be offered again at the WVU Rec Center Wednesday, September 30 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.