By Lyra Bordelon
Similar to last week’s high school presentations, the Greenbrier County Board of Education heard several school improvement presentations and reviews for local elementary schools on Thursday, March 4. Each presentation came with a mixture of disappointment with the remote learning results and hope for the immediate in-person return to class.
“[The schools and staff have] risen above,” said Superintendent Jeff Bryant. “It validates how important a teacher in a classroom is.”
For the local elementary schools, more students are returning to in-person classes as vaccination rates rise. Many parents are looking to send students back for the fourth nine weeks.
As caseloads spiked in fall 2020, many of the schools had to once again completely shut down, sending all of their students to remote learning. Several principals noted this was visible in progress and grade reports from the first nine weeks to the second. However, this also comes with the added hope of a return to full-time, in-person learning getting the students back on track.
“If you listen to what all is going on in the last two LSIC presentations, you know our schools are doing good things,” said Board President Jeanie Wyatt. “You know they’re doing well, considering what all we’ve gone through, and in-and-out, all the changes that have been made, they’ve adapted well. … Yes, the scores aren’t perfect, but they shouldn’t be. They’re all trying, making improvements, that’s all we can ask of them.”
Crichton Elementary School
Crichton Elementary School Principal Donna Nickel celebrated many of the work arounds the students and teachers have come up with, such as take-home science experiments, a successful “Halloween in the Halls,” and some long-term class improvements.
“This is what I’m really proud of – the longitudinal data for fourth grade [shows] they have come a really long way,” Nickel said. “From 2019 to 2020, [you can see] how much they have improved.”
Although Nickel was also thrilled to announce Frankford had “no discipline referrals,” this does not mean that the school hasn’t seen COVID-19 related issues.
“Due to time constraints I’m not going to go over each one of those, but as you can see we are still struggling in every grade with math,” Nickel said. “… We know that writing is a weakness.”
She also noted fourth graders were doing better in math after struggling the previous year.
Hopeful about the rest of the year, Nickel thanked the staff and the board.
“We are a unique, small school with a staff that understands the special needs of our school,” Nickel said. “We are blessed to have a staff that provides a safe and caring environment for our students and the parents are always appreciative of what we do.”
Rainelle Elementary School
“We are attempting as much normalcy as possible,” said Principal Kim Tincher. “The kids are great. They are following the rules as best they can. … Enrollment is considerably down – it’s down from the first year I started at Rainelle. We had 245, 247 the first year I was there. Now we’re down to 188, 190. It’s fluctuating.”
Testing scores during COVID-19 have been down, but not outside of similar school scores.
“The writing scores are a little low, but overall we are comparable with the state and with the county, so I’m not concerned,” Tincher said. “Our math scores are looking better than I thought they would. … Rainelle, for some reason, always pulls through, but we have some work ahead.”
With only one major exception that staff is working with “as closely as we can … on getting him some help,” there have been no serious discipline problems.
“I have one major issue at school [where] this child has had a traumatic life and you really want to take them home with you can try to raise them yourself but you can’t. I think he may have fractured my shin last week. … We’re working as closely as we can … trying to work on getting him some help. You can’t help what goes on out of school. … Other than that we have no discipline problems.”
Changes have also come to the school, such as a third 3D printer for students to experiment with. This also includes the cancellation of the annual Run for the Wall event. Tincher also thanked a teacher, Rebecca Canterbury, for working on a grant that allowed the school to create a walking program for students, with social distancing in place. Although the program began last year, Tincher plans for its return as the weather warms up.
“They go out and walk, or walk in the gym, and they’re listening to podcasts,” Tincher said. “They’re about different things, science and social studies and everything you can think of on these podcasts, plus physical fitness. She did that last year and wants to work that into this year.”
Ronceverte Elementary School
Ronceverte Elementary School has dropped from 100 remote students to 47 as the year progressed, with a student coming back every week “all year long.”
“We have some families that have been allstars at it – they do everything you ask them to do, they participate in every meeting,” said Principal Andrea Stewart. “Then we have some families that we’re trying to track down because we can’t get them to participate in anything or respond to any of our things. … We thought, when we were going to go to the A/B schedule, it was going to be a nightmare for us. … It actually allowed us to do a couple of really cool collaborative activities, especially with the related arts.”
Ronceverte’s students have also seen less progress as a result of the pandemic.
“The largest issue is the kids don’t understand how much repetition there is with kindergarten,” Stewart said. “They’re just teaching the letter of the week and the activities that come with it, they’re not going back every week and making sure the kids remember the letters and the sounds. That has been a challenge, but the teachers have gone above and beyond with that.”
Similar to other schools, Stewart was grateful for the remote technology allowing teaching to continue through the year during the challenges.
“Our teachers have done some really creative things through class dojo,” Stewart said. “They communicate constantly on that. … The fifth grade even incorporated some at home science experiments remotely. They would send all the materials home with the kids and [they] would do the experiment at home with a parent’s help. Several of them would film the child doing the experiment and send it back to the teacher.”
Rupert Elementary School
Principal Jenny Harden began her presentation with good news for Rupert Elementary School – despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the school is growing.
“I am excited to share that enrollment last year was 176 students,” said Harden. “Enrollment this year is … 203. We are growing, which is very exciting to me. We have gone from 53 remote learners at the beginning of the year to … 35. I believe we have five more coming back next week.”
Despite dealing with “difficulties” in the past week, Harden hopes the return to school provides the support the new and old students need.
“Our data is not something to scream and shout about, however, we are growing.”
Afterschool programs are also doing “well,” helping toward this goal.
Harden also thanked Mindfulness West Virginia and Save the Children for providing the school with 1,200 well-stocked meal boxes for area families.
Smoot Elementary
“Slow progress is better than no progress,” explained Principal Molly Judy. “This year has been daunting and remote instruction is certainly not as good as direct instruction. … We’re going to get these kids back anyway we can.”
While providing specific data on many of the individual classrooms, Judy compared the beginning of the year to the current nine weeks, highlighting the growth of each class. For example, in one kindergarten class, 29 percent of students could identify letters at the beginning of the year. This has grown to 71 percent.
One of the common rewards for well performing students is a field trip, something that has not happened this past year. Instead, movie days have been held in the gym, with staff dressing up.
“We had shirts made that say ‘We’re all in it together,’ and that’s how we feel,” Judy said. “I’m so blessed to have a great staff at Smoot Elementary.”
White Sulphur Springs Elementary
“I am the principal at White Sulphur Springs Elementary School, this is my first year,” said Tina Campbell. “I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it is a pandemic school year.”
Campbell explained that, as of “December of 2020, we had 311 students, 200 [in-person] and 111 remote. In person enrollment has gone up to 240 and our remote is down to 70. Three more are coming back in person tomorrow – everyday we’re getting two or three more coming back in person. We do have several that are waiting for the fourth nine weeks.”
COVID-19 exposure shutdowns also impacted learning and grades for White Sulphur students.
“The percentage of A’s went down from the first nine weeks, that’s with the remote learning I believe,” Campbell said. “Once we’re getting the students back in, there’s more in person, the grades are going back up. … Despite all the in and out [of in-person learning] of the second nine weeks, we were really surprised to see that the students were showing growth.”
Campbell also highlighted a tailgate held with a number of local businesses and institutions for students, allowing them to see what kind of businesses flourish locally. This included the White Sulphur Springs Public Library, Food Lion, First Citizens Bank, Sugar Bears Fun Shop, Gillespie’s Floral, and White Sulphur Baptist Church.
Frankford Elementary School
“It’s about one year ago we were starting the conversations about COVID and March 13 will mark the one year of [lockdown] and shutting down the schools,” said Principal Linda King. “It’s not hard to believe that it’s been a really hard year for everyone, … especially for our county board and our leadership team. I thank you for all that you’ve done. … We are in a pretty good place in Frankford.”
Frankford began the year with 195 students, with 58 remote and 142 in-person. That number continues to fall with 26 remote, 169 in person.
Several COVID-19 shutdowns impacted student performance for Frankford in the second nine weeks after a strong start.
“We had a great start to our year and we really felt that we were on a good track with regard to student achievement until November, when the remote days started to outnumber the in-seat days,” King said. “Many students received a failing grade in the second grading period, but it was the result of just not completing the work that was to be done remotely. … Having a consistent schedule and 100 percent capacity will definitely give us the time that we need toward the mastery of grade-level content, so we’re feeling very good about that.”
King offered specifics.
“I am most concerned about first and second grade reading, fourth grade math, and writing proficiency in fourth and fifth grades,” King said. “We’re just starting writing in third grade but we have an exception team there. … Some remote students have done an exceptional job with the remote program this year, but as a whole, in seat students have performed better academically than remote students.”
Despite all of this, the school year has seen improvements. Attendance is “good,” and several of the COVID policy changes have come with other impacts. For example, morning bus hall is now held in classrooms instead of all together in one location. The calmer, smaller tone could be the new normal, setting a less hectic start to each day. This and teachers changing classes, rather than students, has reduced discipline problems.
“Discipline problems have been nonexistent. We have had zero instances and it’s just been wonderful. I have found that this has freed up a lot of my time, which allows me to help teachers with the remote grading, anything they could be needing help with.”
Lewisburg Elementary School
“I want to start out by praising our students,” said Principal Leann Piercy-McMillion. “When I walk in and see three year olds walking in our building and they’re wearing their masks, every single day. They’re not fighting us. They will literally walk in the side door and they will say ‘I forgot my mask!’ … They are rocking this, they’re doing better than the adults [in many public places].”
Piercy-McMillion explained “as of today, we have 91 remote learners, which is about 20 percent of our student body. … They’re gradually starting to come in. Some of the ones that are remote will stay remote for the rest of the year.”
With discipline infractions way down and a future return to full time, Piercy-McMillion hopes improvement is in the future.
“Is it where we want it to be? Absolutely not,” Piercy-McMillion said. “We know we have deficits and the teachers are doing everything they can to meet the needs of the kids. Right now we are trying to deal with the social and emotional issues that we’re confronted with our little kiddos. … I’d like to say it looks really good, but it doesn’t. We’re aware of that and we’re doing everything we can when we have the kids in the building.”
She emphasized phone calls instead of other methods to reach the parents and guardians of struggling kids and making them feel welcome, encouraging them to reach out.
Piercy-McMillion also thanked three individual staff members, including Math Interventionist Robin Skillern, Head Custodian John Woodrum, and Fourth Grade Teacher Kate Taylor, for their special projects during the pandemic. This includes Skillern’s grant writing efforts, Woodrum’s special efforts to keep the school safe during the pandemic, and Taylor’s reading sessions for the students and her “singlehandedly” helping teach staff how to use Google Meets.
“Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to come in, talk to you, and brag about our school,” joked Piercy-McMillion. “We are still learning at Lewisburg Elementary School and we are still having fun. That’s what’s so important about this year, is that we can make everything as much fun as we can for the children and … they’re learning while they’re in the building.”
