Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.
As of a special board meeting held by the Jefferson County School Board on Tuesday, July 21, the Back to School date for Jefferson Somerset students has been extended.
Formerly, students would have either returned to their on-campus classrooms or began learning through Jefferson Somerset's live virtual classrooms on Monday, Aug. 10. But a vote from board members has led to the school date being pushed back to Wednesday, Aug. 19.
“In light of the changes with COVID in the county, I would like to push the opening date to August 19, but also ask the board for flexibility if we need to, to even go as far as August 31,” said Jefferson County Superintendent of Schools Marianne Arbulu to board members during the July 21 virtual meeting of the board.
According to Arbulu, “time is important right now” and the longer school staff had to prepare for returning students amongst a COVID-19 climate – and the longer it gave the virus to hopefully decline within the county – the better.
In addition, Superintendent Arbulu brought up the concept of potentially staggering the return of students, to allow teachers to slowly adjust to the new process of COVID-19 classrooms.
“I would like to seriously consider staggering our opening date for our school. In other words, we might open our elementary school on the 19th, only the elementary,” said Arbulu. “That would give administrators and staff time to go through routines, observe and uncover things that are not working as they planned. They will have time to adjust.”
From there, Arbulu said, perhaps the school could reopen the middle school the following week and high school the week after that.
“I think that might give everyone the chance to do this in a more methodic way and a more organized way,” added Superintendent Arbulu.
School Board Chairman Bill Brumfield expressed concerns on how a staggered opening would impact the end of the year plans for student graduation and grade transition, with Arbulu replying that it would be a process of balance.
“It would be a calendar juggle,” admitted Arbulu. “It's something I think we should really consider strongly. I think it has a lot of merits.”
Chairman Brumfield also questioned how a staggered opening would impact teacher pay, as he was concerned that the staggering of opening the school back up to students would cause some teachers to experience lapses in their pay. “How is that going to work?” he questioned.
It was Jefferson Somerset Principal Cory Oliver who answered that question, stating that should a staggered opening be conducted, teachers would still be paid as laid out in their contract. Any teacher who worked more hours than included in their contracted agreement would have to be paid overtime.
However, it was Principal Oliver's belief that a staggered opening was not a fully realistic venture, but said that the school could perhaps do a soft opening.
“It's not a bad idea – three weeks is too long, but maybe three days,” he said, adding that if a three-day staggered opening was conducted, then he would still have the middle and high school teachers report to school on August 19, but they would use the extra time to prepare their classrooms for student return.
Overall, though, Principal Oliver agreed and supported the postponement of the start of the school year from August 10 to August 19. Oliver stated that should Jefferson choose to push the opening date back, then the county's students would coincide with the back-to-school date set for Leon County students – which, Oliver said, was best.
A motion to postpone the Back to School date for Jefferson Somerset students was made by School Board Member Gladys Roann-Watson, and seconded by Board Member Charles Boland. The motion was voted three in favor, and two opposing. The two votes in opposition were made by Board Members Shirley Washington and Sandra Saunders.
Regarding her dissenting vote, Saunders said: “I still have a concern, overall, with the whole picture.”
With a majority vote in approval, the motion was passed. Jefferson Somerset will not reopen its virtual classrooms or on-campus classrooms until Wednesday, Aug. 19.