Despite the West Virginia Department of Education’s recent mandate that all county K through 8th-grade students return to in-person learning regardless of COVID-19 risk level, Greenbrier County Schools were forced to close their buildings to students on two separate occasions this week.
However, these most recent closing were not pandemic-related but rather due to inclement weather.
Greenbrier’s current education-model divides four weekdays between two groupings of students, thereby ensuring both groups attend in-person education sessions two-times each week. The model leaves Wednesdays as a remote-learning day in order to allow time to thoroughly clean and sanitize all buildings.
When hazardous road conditions forced Monday, Jan. 25, to be transitioned to a remote-learning day for all students, it left no further room for scheduling adjustments. When the situation was repeated on Thursday, Jan. 28, school officials opted to declare the county’s first official “snow day” of the school year, canceling both in-person and remote-learning entirely for the day.
In a social media post, dated Thursday, Jan. 28, Greenbrier County school officials said, “Thank you for your understanding as we continue to navigate the scheduling challenges presented by COVID-19, which have been further complicated this week by winter weather. If Greenbrier County is still in the orange category on the WVDHHR County Alert Map on Saturday [January 30], we will resume Group A/Group B schedule effective Monday, Feb. 1, as follows:
Monday – Group A in-school learning / Group B remote.
Tuesday – Group B in-school learning / Group A remote.
Wednesday – Remote Learning for all students.
Thursday – Group A in-school learning / Group B remote.
Friday – Group B in-school learning / Group A remote.
Should Greenbrier County be designated in any other category on the Saturday Alert Map, GCS will implement the plan for that color. We will contact families on Saturday to confirm the week’s attendance plan via SchoolMessenger notification and post an update on Facebook.”
Presently, Greenbrier County is designated as orange on the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resource’s color-coded County Alert System Map. However, the measurable-metrics, which are used to determine a particular county’s color designation, have been steadily declining in Greenbrier County over recent weeks.
On Friday, Jan. 22, the county’s infection rate was 47.81% and its percent positive was 6.48%. As of Thursday, Jan. 28, those numbers have decreased to 42.86% and 6.19% respectively. While the current numbers indicate that Greenbrier County will, most likely, remain designated as orange for the week beginning Monday, Feb. 1, the incremental decrease can be seen as a positive.
The West Virginia Daily News will provide additional details regarding Greenbrier County Schools education plan after the W.Va. DHHR’s color-coded County Alert System Map is updated on Saturday, Jan. 30.
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