SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va. — There’s a growing number of students and parents in Nicholas County who originally chose a blended learning model to begin the school year who now want to be in the classroom more.
The Nicholas County Board of Education meets Monday and will take up a request from Nicholas County School Superintendent Donna Burge-Tetrick to try and meet those desires.
Burge-Tetrick said there are now a lot of students want to come to school four days a week.
“We have the option of two days a week and four days a week depending on space and we’ve had such an overwhelming request for students to attend, I’m just going to ask my board if it’s okay to bring all of them back four days a week,” Burge-Tetrick told MetroNews.
Burge-Tetrick said she believes the desire to change is less about connectivity problems with remote learning and more about favoring the traditional classroom setting.
“I think we’re servicing people (with online learning) really well but a lot of times people don’t know if distance learning or virtual learning is right for them until they try it,” Burge-Tetrick said. “So we gave students the first three weeks to try it out and see what fits best for them.”
Gov. Jim Justice has said repeatedly the instruction plan in connection with COVID-19 is a local decision. He repeated that at last Friday’s media briefing.
“I promise you with all my soul that we’re trying to do everything we possibly can in working with the local people to make the right moves in each one of these counties,” Justice said.
Burge-Tetrick said she’s hopeful her school board will give her the okay to tweak Nicholas County’s plan.
“We have a lot of students who realize they learn better if they’re face-to-face in school and I want to try and accommodate that and I’ll see if my board feels comfortable in letting me do that,” Burge-Tetrick said.
Nicholas County is green on this week’s COVID-19 school alert map.