Rappahannock schools rush to reopen safely amid COVID-19

Officials assume in-person classes will resume in August

‘We need to work out a lot of details in a very short amount of time’

By Randy Rieland — For Foothills Forum

When Rappahannock students head back to school in a few months, it’s likely they’ll need to get health screenings every morning, their teachers could wear facemasks and high fives will be strongly discouraged among teammates. 

So, how do you make that feel normal?

That’s the dilemma facing school officials as they wrestle with how to keep kids safe in a pandemic — a challenge that touches almost every aspect of school life, from bus rides to sports teams to how desks are arranged to how teachers teach.

“We need to work out a lot of details in a very short amount of time,” said Shannon Grimsley, superintendent of Rappahannock County Public Schools. 

Getting parents’ input

To make sure students’ parents are involved in that process, the school district sent out a survey last week soliciting their participation on the nine teams formed to deal with different facets of providing a safe education. The deadline for parents to respond is Friday, June 19.

Grimsley said she and her staff have already heard “very loud and clear” from parents that they want all students to be able to go back to school instead of having some continue to take online courses from home.

“Parents are going back to work, but they can’t afford childcare,” she said. “For them, it will be a huge barrier to maintaining economic stability.”

Grimsley’s goal is to be able to comply with those wishes, something that will be more likely if and when the state moves on to Phase 3 of the “Virginia Forward” reopening plan. It’s less restrictive than the guidelines for Phase 2, which went into effect last week. 

She said school districts with relatively small student populations, such as Rappahannock, have a bit of an advantage in complying with social distancing stipulations. Even so, the district is considering providing individual desks for elementary school students instead of having them sit around a table. 

Getting students to and from school is a bigger challenge. Currently, about two-thirds of Rappahannock’s students ride the bus. Keeping riders six feet apart dramatically reduces the number of kids who can be on board.

“When you take a 77-passenger bus and need to limit it to no more than 12 kids, that really affects your routes,” Grimsley said. “And there’s a financial impact. Will you need to buy more buses?” She noted that one new bus could cost $100,000.

One suggestion from the state is for districts to adopt schedules by which some students would come into school only on certain days. But Grimsley said she wants to avoid that, if possible. Instead, with input from bus drivers, her staff is looking at ways to adjust pickup and drop-off sites or repeat routes on staggered times so that no one would have to stay home.

Impact on sports

Another major question is how social distancing guidelines will affect sports teams. The National Federation of State High School Associations has characterized different sports as higher risk, moderate risk or lower risk, with those in the first group facing the biggest hurdles. At Rappahannock, that includes the football and competitive cheer teams, both of which involve “close, sustained contact between participants.” 

Chances are that lower risk fall sports, such as golf and cross country, will be able to proceed as usual, but the higher risk ones may need to follow a condensed schedule with competition starting later in the fall. Volleyball is listed as a moderate risk activity, but under Phase 2 guidelines, players can begin practicing as long as the ball is “cleaned intermittently.”

The district, in fact, has received permission to begin conditioning workouts for Rappahannock athletes the last week of this month, according to Courtney Atkins, the school district’s athletic director. She and the school’s coaches are tackling the logistics of allowing groups of students to train together while keeping them safe. 

For instance, they’re figuring out how best to do health screenings when athletes arrive, and how they’ll keep them in the same small groups so it will be easier to do contact tracing if someone becomes infected. Locker rooms won’t be used and the number of students in the weight room at one time will be limited. Athletes will be kept from sharing equipment.

Atkins said priority will be given to those participating in fall sports, although it’s still unclear which teams will actually play. The Virginia High School League, which oversees interscholastic athletic competition in the state, is expected to take that up at a meeting next week.

Grimsley said she’s concerned about the potential consequences if some sports are cancelled. “For our students and parents, sports are so much of the school experience,” she said. “It’s such a positive activity for kids to be involved in.”

Fighting isolation 

For private schools in the county, including Wakefield Country Day School and Belle Meade Montessori School, their small enrollments reduce some of the complications of social distancing. (Wakefield expects to have more than 130 students, Belle Meade, 30 students). But there are still plenty of decisions and adjustments to make.

Patrick Finn won’t officially become the new Head of School at Wakefield until July 1, but said he’s already been involved with planning the reopening for the past few months. He’s hopeful that Wakefield’s Summer Day Camp, which begins July 6, will help him and his staff get a better feel for what works and what doesn’t.

“Addressing the mental health of the students and their families is really important,” he said. “I think the camp will be a good prelude to how we approach that.

“This has been a very unusual and probably stressful time for many of the students, and kids in some age groups really don’t understand what’s going on,” he added. 

John Glass, Head of School at Belle Meade, agreed. “The isolation during Phase 1 was a huge factor for students,” he said. Some have made a point of checking in with their peers or staying connected with the school. Small groups came in to ride horses together, Glass noted. A trio of students has been working on converting an old barn into a woodshop, a project that had been planned for the fall. 

“It’s been clear that students have needed to meet with each other,” he said.

What if?

While many details still need to be finalized, school officials in the county are moving ahead with the assumption that in-person classes — albeit in “now normal” form — will resume in August. Grimsley will present the RCPS’s reopening plan at the July 14 school board meeting. 

But she acknowledged that she and her staff have to be ready for the possibility that a spike in COVID-19 cases could force schools to close again. She said that lessons learned during the early shutdown a few months ago has helped to prepare them. 

Grimsley noted that, according to a recent survey of parents, a high percentage said they were “very satisfied” with the quality of remote instruction by teachers, and also their availability and feedback.

She said teachers have a better sense of how to make online content more engaging, but also rigorous enough to meet state standards. Also, she pointed out that many teachers have requested additional training on the Google Classroom platform.

Grimsley said the switch to distance learning has made the school district even more aware of the county’s “digital landscape.” 

“This will be important data in furthering the dialogue in collaboration with the county regarding rural broadband,” she said.

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