Union County schools to continue distance learning, delay graduation ceremonies

While Gov. Tate Reeves’s decision to keep schools closed for the rest of the school year was met with some regret, it also helps Union County school administrators and teachers move forward.

Russell Taylor, working on maintenance at West Union and preparing for the eventual return of classes.

“It did not come as huge shock to everybody the way things were going, but it did give us the opportunity to go ahead and make plans for the remainder of the year for distance learning,” incoming Union County school superintendent Russell Taylor said.

“We worked on plans yesterday,” he said. “Mrs. Faulkner and Mr. Basil (Assistant Superintendent Windy Faulkner and Superintendent Ken Basil) got together and we had an administrative meeting where we are planning our second round of distance learning.”

Schools will be getting more packets out to students in the near future and as soon as the shelter in place ends they will be opening up the lunch program again, he said. “The governor is supposed to make another announcement in the next couple of days. As soon as he does on the shelter in place we will be planning on getting our second round of distance learning out to students.”

Like the city district, county schools have been reinforcing old material primarily rather than introducing new.

“We’re putting out on our website what we’re doing,” he said, but “we want to get packets out to make sure every student has an opportunity because not everyone has the ability to have the internet at the house.”

“Now that the governor has made his decision we are going to plan how we do our grading at the end of the year,” Taylor said. “But now we’re not taking any grades on this new material.”

Right now they are not planning to extend the school year in any usual sense.

“Our plans tentatively are to come together at the end of May and maybe send out some packets for students to work on in June,” he said. “As soon as school buildings are able to open we will have to look at what we can do then.”

The county district has set dates for graduation ceremonies with hopes they will be able to hold them.

Myrtle will be June 15, Ingomar will be June 18, East Union will be June 22 and West Union will be June 25. The New Albany graduation date was May 22 but school officials plan to move it to July 31 while having some sort of celebration on the 22^nd.

“Those are certainly tentative plans,” Taylor emphasized concerning the county dates. “And what we’re going to do with that is certainly have to wait to see how long shelter in place lasts, how long social distancing lasts, and then according to the guidelines we have then.”

“If everything were to still be shut down – I hope it’s not – we wouldn’t be able to have it, but if we do we’re probably going to use an outside venue and try to find ways to maybe accommodate social distancing while we do that,” he said. “Outside would probably do that better than inside.”

Even with the governor’s decision, much that will affect school remains unknown.

“So much has changed in the last five weeks, how much could change in the next five weeks,” Taylor said. “That’s kind of where we are but we do have plans to go ahead and continue distance learning for the rest of the year with enrichment and remediation for the kids.”

“Hopefully we also will get them some work at the end of May that they can work on over the summer to help mitigate some of what they lost there at the end of the year,” he said.

Distance learning is no replacement for the traditional classroom, but things could be worse, he said.

“In talking, I think it’s working pretty well,” Taylor said. “Certainly this is the first time any of us have done this. So I think for this second round we’ve got plans that we’re going to build on what we did the first time and add some things.”

“I think most of the parents appreciate the efforts that are being put out there,” he said. “Certainly we appreciate the parents so much because you know a lot of parents are working and coming home and working with their kids on this and it’s taking a real effort. I will say our parents have done a great job with that.”

Taylor acknowledges that it may not always be easy for parents to help. Teaching methods may be different from those used when the parents were in school.

“One of the things that we have tried to do in our packets is provide a lot of examples for the students and that’s what we are going to do this next time so that it will help the parents help the kids,” he said. “And the last time we put some keys and answers in there so parents could build and take those keys and help the kids get to the answers they need to.”

“It’s not perfect, certainly but right now under the circumstances I think it’s working about as good as it can,” he said.

Teachers are communicating directly with students to a degree.

“Teachers have done a real good job of trying to meet on social media platforms with their students once a week or twice a week trying to stay engaged,” Taylor said, but not all students have internet access.

For those that do, the schools are working to make sure students get the material they need. For those who don’t, there are packets.

“We had a lot of kids to do packets, probably more so at West Union than we had online but we had our 9-12 have the Chromebooks at home and using those so we had more online there but we have pockets without internet. I would think a lot of rural areas in Mississippi are about the same,” he said.

“We have a lot of students and teachers that are sad about it (the governor’s decision) but if we look at safety it’s got to be the top priority,” Taylor said. “So I certainly understand his decision and understand that it was probably the right decision and now we’ve just got to do our best we can do to adapt and provide what the students need the rest of the year.”

“Right now we’ve got to get this knocked out and taken care so hopefully we can return in August,” he said. “A second wave is concerning. That’s one of the things we have to think about and plan for.”

“Now we know where we’re going to be. What’s going to happen and it lets us make more concrete plans,” Taylor said.