West Carroll schools did remote learning 'as best as we can' with so many sick kids, staff

Across three schools, two of three principals, two of three nurses, one of two school resource officers, nine of 20 cafeteria workers and 16 teachers were either in isolation or quarantine in West Carroll Special School District on Wednesday.

Director of Schools Preston Caldwell knew he would close schools Thursday and Friday either through the Tennessee Department of Education approving a remote learning request for each school or him using districtwide stockpile days.

“The safety of our children, faculty and staff is the most important thing in our district,” Caldwell said. “Learning is always second to safety. You can’t have learning unless you have a safe learning environment, and you can’t do that without people here.”

The district was granted the remote learning waiver for all its three schools, allowing it to close the district, according to the Tennessean. On the district's Facebook post announcing the closures on Wednesday afternoon, it said school would be closed but didn't say the days would be for remote learning.

Although that wasn’t communicated correctly on social media, the schools did remote learning – “as best as we can,” Caldwell said.

The remote learning was a challenge for the same reason that in-person learning couldn’t happen: the number of absent students and staff, many of whom have severe cases of COVID-19.

More than 150 of around 800 students were absent when the TDOE gave the school system the OK to go virtual on Wednesday. Staff started distributing learning packets, asking parents to pick up those packets and sending emails about remote learning – hard tasks when so many staff and students are sick, he said.

Caldwell: To do remote learning is to expect some students, staff to do work while they’re sick

Thirty-three percent of teachers were isolated or quarantined at West Carroll Primary School, 31% were at the elementary school and 19% of students were at the Jr. Sr. High School, the waiver request said.

Doing the remote learning became a question of what were teachers “able” to teach their students and were students able to do the work, he said.

Punishing students or teachers for their inability to do virtual learning due to their sickness will not happen in West Carroll, he said.

“That’s why it was ‘Do the best you can,’” Caldwell said Friday afternoon as he sat in an empty school that was being deep cleaned. “We’re remote learning as best as we can but without pressuring or punishing sick children.”

‘No right choice’ in choosing a waiver or stockpile day

This school year, Gov. Bill Lee said school districts couldn’t switch to virtual learning. A month into the semester, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn allowed a waiver if classes or schools couldn’t operate because of the virus’ impact on students and staff.

The waivers are intended to provide remote instruction when the school can’t “support in-person learning,” but for districts like West Carroll, remote learning still wasn’t ideal.

“How can anybody require a sick child to do work?” Caldwell said. “These students are sick. These teachers are sick. The hospitals are full. The clinics are full. We need to worry about people’s health. We need to worry about people surviving this and being OK.”

Many teachers provided review work for virtual learning instead new material.

“There’s no way to be punitive to children who have been sick or whose teachers have been,” Caldwell said.

With the spike in COVID cases and hospitalizations and the presence of the omicron variant, other West Tennessee school systems have closed over the past month. Some schools moved to remote learning under the waiver or the district closed for a few days with stockpile days.

School districts get 13 stockpile days – days accumulated by districts having seven hours of school rather than the required 6 1/2 hours. The days are often used for weather or districtwide closures due to COVID-19 since the pandemic started.

School districts can’t request the waiver as a district but can for individual schools, which is what the three-school district of West Carroll did and what other districts can do if they can document the need.

The smaller the district, the higher that chance.

Across the West Tennessee region, there are districts with as little as one school like Alamo City School and as many as more than two dozen like Jackson-Madison County Schools. There are counties made up of three-school districts of an elementary, middle and high school, a K-8 school and high school and/or a K-12, such as the five districts in Carroll County.

Read more: Schools use closures or virtual days to address illness during COVID-19 surge

From the state: Tennessee grants four districts permission to switch to virtual learning — for all of their individual schools

“It’s like there’s no good choice,” he said. “The waiver just provides relief if you can do what you can in remote learning.”

Districts can close classes and schools, if approved, and try to overcome the difficulties of an immediate pivot to remote learning or risk exhausting their limited number of stockpile days for unforeseen things in the future, Caldwell said.

While the waiver spares those days, he said “there is not quality learning in an immediate switch to remote learning.”

Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email at lthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT

This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: West Carroll schools remote learning waiver sick kids, staff work