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In its Tuesday working session, the Troup County School Board informally agreed to continue to require masks for staff and students at its facilities.
“At the moment, everything is going very well,” said TCSS Superintendent Dr. Brian Shumate. “Children are used to it. Teachers are used to it. “
He explained that the school system is very careful with visitors, asking them to be vaccinated, making them wear masks, demanding that they socially distance themselves from students and only allowing them to visit schools for academic purposes. “very specific”.
“I think the masks have helped us stay open,” he said, explaining that school districts without a mask requirement had more cases.
President Cathy Hunt said she has been told by many school staff that respect for the mask is good with around 99% of the students.
“We talked about trying to find some kind of metrics to look at,” she said. “In my opinion, we need to look at several things. We need to review our case numbers at school. We need to look at the number of cases in the county. We need to look at the hospital situation. We need to talk to our neighbors… about what the counties around us are doing. “
Hunt said that while everyone was ready to “start taking some bandages off,” she agreed with Shumate and that TCSS was able to stay open last year because of the precautions he took.
In other matters at the meeting, Jonathan Laney, Director of Secondary Education, and Deana Brown, Director of Elementary Program, provided an update on the virtual school.
At the primary level, 152 students are enrolled.
“That’s 19 kindergarten students, 24 in first grade, 23 in second grade, 28 in third grade, 28 in fourth grade and 30 in fifth grade,” Brown said. “At this point, there is a teacher for each grade level. So we have six teachers and a facilitator. The facilitator is used to answer parents’ phone calls, to help parents solve technological problems at home. She regularly monitors classes. She goes where she can see them. And then she also replaces as needed when one of our teachers has to be absent for some reason.
Brown said elementary-level students benefit from four hours of online instruction, as well as art, music and physical education. With two gifted certified teachers and facilitator, the school is also able to provide gifted services.
“Intervention services are provided by the virtual teachers in small groups in the afternoons, so even though they are only face to face with the students in the morning, they are really busy all day teaching. in a small group, trying to catch up with some things for some kids, ”Brown said.
Laney said that at the college level there are 110 virtual students.
“The kids go to school for five hours a day,” he said. “That’s four main courses and one elective, and they change courses every nine weeks. And right now, I think it’s going pretty well.
Laney said the college’s virtual teachers were housed at LaGrange High School.
At the secondary level, there are 140 students. Laney said classes at the high school level, for the most part, are mixed.
“So if [virtual] children in regular class are in class, they are in class in front of the camera, ”he said. “There isn’t much of a difference. That’s right where they are.
During the Superintendent’s Report, Shumate introduced TCSS’s new public relations manager, Irisha Goodman.
“Irisha comes to us from the broadcast world, originally in Albany, Georgia and Columbus, GA, then moved to Roanoke, Virginia as a reporter,” he said.
Goodman introduced himself and talked about starting his new job.
“I’ve been at LaGrange for a few days,” she said. “[The] the first day was last Thursday, and [my] the first day of work was yesterday. It has been a busy two days and everyone has been very nice. It has been a pleasure to be here and I have the good fortune to work with a wonderful group of people.
Shumate said the number of registrations for August of this year was 12,126, 46 more than last year.
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