School Board Meets
Clay County's Board
of Edumacation held a public meeting on Jan 11th at the
Pentagon. All Boardsters were present for the assembly. During
their Dec meetings, no one from the public sat in the peanut
gallery and the posted agendas were very light. Both Dec
meetings and those in Nov 2020 were done in less than 12
minutes.
For the Jan 11th gathering, just a couple notes from agenda topics.
Total revenue is $38,000 more than at the same time in 2019. Total revenue to date stands at $1,364,965.09.
Steve Jones was hired as a volunteer basketball coach at Clay High.
During the exploding COVID 19 pandemic , during the last 12 months, only one time did a parent, guardian, show up to discuss the scary time for kids to be in school and parents to be exposed by the returning home rug rats. True, kids have a lower infection rate than adults, but they certainly are carriers of the virus thus exposing parents, grand parents and other seniors citizens. Only one parent showed up during the last 5 months
For the Jan 11th gathering, just a couple notes from agenda topics.
Total revenue is $38,000 more than at the same time in 2019. Total revenue to date stands at $1,364,965.09.
Steve Jones was hired as a volunteer basketball coach at Clay High.
During the exploding COVID 19 pandemic , during the last 12 months, only one time did a parent, guardian, show up to discuss the scary time for kids to be in school and parents to be exposed by the returning home rug rats. True, kids have a lower infection rate than adults, but they certainly are carriers of the virus thus exposing parents, grand parents and other seniors citizens. Only one parent showed up during the last 5 months
Teacher and AFT Rep Brittany Dolly
The reality
is, schools in West Virginia have been closed this entire
year. Yes we're aware of attempts to do remote learning. We
also know of the dismal failure of such an approach. Base one
is, Frontier DSL service sucks for dead air and that's in
areas that actually have the snail internet service. Base two
is, poorly educated parents and grand parents are poorly
equipped to serve as home teachers. Third, we have a couple
different tiers of online offerings which offer
inadequate levels of performance at best.
Just a couple weeks ago, the Gov. said as much about remote learning. The Governor told us, it ain't working.
If standardized testing were to be offered at the end of this school year and compared to last year when schools were operating with open doors, our guess, the test scores would vary only slightly.
Now back to the Jan 11th Board meeting
But then, what skeers the elected folks and Pentagon to death, people showing up for a public meeting.
Three members of the Federation of Teachers union showed up. Local rep Brittany Dolly was their spokesperson.
Ms Dolly was provided time to make her message without interruption.
Opening up Dolly applied about 5 pounds of sugar coating. Stuff like: thank you for all the safety measures you provided.... You're doing a wonderful job... we appreciate you.... you're the best thang since canned soup...
Oh they were smiling ear to ear. Maybe that's the best way to get the folks up front feeling good but Yuk, what a suction job
Getting to the point of their appearance, Ms Dolly continued with: On Dec 30th, the Gov told the world that he wanted the rug rats back in school 5 days a week... Today, the same guy stretched out the "orange" level on the color code map to make it easier to stay out of the red designation which shuts everything down.....contact tracing is hard to do and with the pandemic spreading, it's even harder to do...... getting kids back in school under these conditions , that's very stressful ... so far, there is no vaccine out there... community spread is growing in Clayberry ... when teachers, service personnel are in quarantine, that requires the use of sick leave.
What was Dolly was asking for was, keep everything on a remote learning basis for now. But, she really did not make that ask clear.
Trying to get away from the subject, Superintendent Joe Paxton provided, we're taking this day to day... It's fluid... this is day by day.
What he didn't want to come up was the number of his employees that refuse to take the vaccine. After questions from Boardster Cheryl White, Paxton admitted, only about 50% of his personnel are willing to take the controversial vaccine. He did say that the vaccines are coming soon , maybe at the end of this week.
David Person made it loud and clear with: Service Personnel are refusing [to take vaccine] based on nonsense.
Even accounting for the suction segment, Ms Dolly did a pretty good job of laying out the problems with returning to bricks and mortar learning except for making the "ask" clear.
It was Boardster Susan Bodkin that questioned Dolly on her real purpose for the presentation. After that question, Ms Dolly: we are asking to wait on opening schools until everyone is vaccinated.
It was a good meeting with stuff being said and asked. Stuff that should have been brought front and center back in Sept 2020.
AW
Just a couple weeks ago, the Gov. said as much about remote learning. The Governor told us, it ain't working.
If standardized testing were to be offered at the end of this school year and compared to last year when schools were operating with open doors, our guess, the test scores would vary only slightly.
Now back to the Jan 11th Board meeting
But then, what skeers the elected folks and Pentagon to death, people showing up for a public meeting.
Three members of the Federation of Teachers union showed up. Local rep Brittany Dolly was their spokesperson.
Ms Dolly was provided time to make her message without interruption.
Opening up Dolly applied about 5 pounds of sugar coating. Stuff like: thank you for all the safety measures you provided.... You're doing a wonderful job... we appreciate you.... you're the best thang since canned soup...
Oh they were smiling ear to ear. Maybe that's the best way to get the folks up front feeling good but Yuk, what a suction job
Getting to the point of their appearance, Ms Dolly continued with: On Dec 30th, the Gov told the world that he wanted the rug rats back in school 5 days a week... Today, the same guy stretched out the "orange" level on the color code map to make it easier to stay out of the red designation which shuts everything down.....contact tracing is hard to do and with the pandemic spreading, it's even harder to do...... getting kids back in school under these conditions , that's very stressful ... so far, there is no vaccine out there... community spread is growing in Clayberry ... when teachers, service personnel are in quarantine, that requires the use of sick leave.
What was Dolly was asking for was, keep everything on a remote learning basis for now. But, she really did not make that ask clear.
Trying to get away from the subject, Superintendent Joe Paxton provided, we're taking this day to day... It's fluid... this is day by day.
What he didn't want to come up was the number of his employees that refuse to take the vaccine. After questions from Boardster Cheryl White, Paxton admitted, only about 50% of his personnel are willing to take the controversial vaccine. He did say that the vaccines are coming soon , maybe at the end of this week.
David Person made it loud and clear with: Service Personnel are refusing [to take vaccine] based on nonsense.
Even accounting for the suction segment, Ms Dolly did a pretty good job of laying out the problems with returning to bricks and mortar learning except for making the "ask" clear.
It was Boardster Susan Bodkin that questioned Dolly on her real purpose for the presentation. After that question, Ms Dolly: we are asking to wait on opening schools until everyone is vaccinated.
It was a good meeting with stuff being said and asked. Stuff that should have been brought front and center back in Sept 2020.
AW