UPSHUR COUNTY, W.Va. — It’ll be January 4, 2021 at the earliest before students return to schools in Upshur County.
On Tuesday, members of the Upshur County Board of Education voted to shift immediately to full remote learning until then citing rising COVID-19 case numbers in Upshur County and staffing issues for school personnel and substitutes.
“We recognize that that decision complicated matters for some of our families, but we just didn’t feel that in-person learning was the safest option right now,” said Dr. Tammy Samples, president of the Upshur County Board of Education.
She talked about the decision during an appearance on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline” with Dr. Sara Lewis-Stankus, superintendent of schools in Upshur County.
Lewis-Stankus admitted it was not ideal.
“We don’t want to be in a pandemic. We don’t want to be in this scenario. However, at this point, we felt that it was the safest and most prudent decision to make,” the superintendent said.
As of Wednesday morning, Upshur County was yellow, defined as having “increased” community transmission, on the daily County Alert System Map tracking coronavirus spread from the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
Upshur County was also yellow on the separate Saturday Education Map.
Counties that are green, yellow or gold are permitted to hold in-person classes.
In-person instruction is not allowed in counties that are red for “substantial” coronavirus transmission on either the daily and Saturday maps or orange for “heightened” transmission on the Saturday map only, as determined through reporting to DHHR.
On Wednesday, there were three red counties on the daily map: Mineral, Marshall and Jackson.
The daily map included 15 orange counties: Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hardy, Barbour, Randolph, Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Wood, Mason, Putnam, Cabell, Wayne and Boone.
Other counties that were not red or orange, but where local officials had opted to go fully remote with instruction until at least Dec. 3, 2020 included Grant, Hampshire, Nicholas, Clay and Wetzel, according to information from the state Department of Education.
In all, the Saturday Education Map, as of Wednesday, indicated 23 of West Virginia’s 55 counties, at least, were not having any in-person classes.
Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association President, previously requested that Gov. Jim Justice extend remote learning in all counties until January, which would be after the Christmas break.
As of now, Dec. 3 is the earliest allowed return date following next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.
COVID-19 cases, associated staff quarantines and contact tracing were all identified as contributing factors in county decisions to shift all instruction online.
In Upshur County, “Not only do we have a teacher shortage, but we have a substitute teacher shortage,” Dr. Lewis-Stankus said.
A lack of substitute teachers moved both Buckhannon-Upshur High School and Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School to fully remote learning earlier this week.
The Tuesday BOE decision will extend the online shift to all schools in Upshur County through December.
Teachers and staff members are to continue to report to facilities on scheduled school days.
Next Tuesday, a Thanksgiving food distribution was scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School.
Dr. Samples said she was hopeful schools in Upshur County could reopen to students, as planned, on January 4th.
“I want to be optimistic,” she said. “I am hopeful that people will follow guidelines and that we can, with this time that we’re giving our communities to slow the spread, I’m hopeful that we can return.”
Sara Lewis Stankus, @CountyUpshur School Superintendent, and Tammy Samples, Upshur County School Board President, talk with @HoppyKercheval about Upshur County moving to remote learning for the rest of the semester. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIRZCB pic.twitter.com/wjb0podscG
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) November 18, 2020