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BUCKHANNON -- Upshur County Schools will remain fully remote through Wednesday, Nov. 4 at the recommendation of the Upshur-Buckhannon Health Department to encourage bus drivers to serve the full 14 days of quarantine.
As of Tuesday evening's numbers presented at the Upshur County Board of Education meeting, there were 20 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Upshur County Schools with 12 positive cases in the Upshur County Schools transportation department and 28 under quarantine in the transportation department. There were 73 total Upshur County Schools staff quarantining across all the schools and departments.
If the West Virginia Department of Education's school alert system color map on Saturday, Oct. 31 indicates in-person instruction will be allowed in Upshur County next week, the first day back for students will be Thursday, Nov. 5 under the blended model. Students would also attend Friday, Nov. 6 under the blended model.
A press release from Upshur County Schools Wednesday stated that the health department's recommendation to have all drivers honor the full quarantine "will more effectively limit the spread of the virus within this outbreak. "Our priority is the safety of our students, employees, families and the community at large. Therefore, we support the health department's request to maintain full quarantine."
During Tuesday's meeting, board vice president Katie Loudin asked about requiring bus drivers to wear masks during their routes like what other counties are doing.
"The entire school system has come to its knees," she said. "If anyone doesn't think the bus drivers are the heart and soul of this school system...for everyone's safety, their's included, I would like us to entertain changing that practice."
One parent spoke at Tuesday's board meeting held at Washington District Elementary. Tom O'Neill has four students at the high school and two in elementary school including five children of his own and an exchange student.
"I wanted to come to speak because I just thought it was important to express something to the board and it has to do with what happened on Sunday," he said. "With respect to the initial call that went out that everything was all systems go for Monday and following that with a retraction.
"You just need to hear that that occurrence was devastating to at least the kids in my household, and still is," he said.
"I fully recognize that COVID is a serious thing," he said. "I know people who have coped with it; I know people who have died from it. I take it seriously and I think we all need to take it seriously. I'm glad to see that everyone here is taking it seriously."
O'Neill wrote an initial email to Superintendent Dr. Sara Stankus after Sunday's change and said he understood circumstances had changed between Tuesday and Sunday.
"The remote learning model is not...I feel serving our kids well," he said. "It is certainly better than what we had in the spring which was just a complete shutdown. I applaud and appreciate all of the effort by educators, but remote learning is an inferior model to in-person learning.
"I would just urge you to allow students to come back as soon as possible and even five days a week as soon as possible and make up for lost time."
O'Neill said he has a lot of respect for Dr. Jeff Harvey, director of school safety and emergency preparedness, but heard the word hyper-vigilance or hyper-care during the earlier presentation.
"I feel like maybe hyper-vigilance is getting a little bit out of balance with what is really the best interests of the students," he said. "I urge you to please let our kids back in the classroom as soon as possible."
The board did not respond to O'Neill's comments directly, but during board member comments president Dr. Tammy Samples said she knew how much work and stress everyone was under.
Samples said, "I know that every person connected to the school is working a lot of hours. I know tensions are high. I know this is a situation that changes about every minute. I know it continuously changes. I just appreciate the effort that every single person is making to make this work for our families. It's not easy. These decisions are hard. I know that everybody is over stressed with what is going on. I so appreciate all the work that everyone is doing."