Area districts pick school start dates

By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor

Most school districts in the Big Sandy region have announced their start dates for the upcoming school year, but it will be up to parents to decide whether their children will get instruction at home or in the classroom. Lawrence County will be the first to start classes, on Aug. 26, followed by Johnson County and Paintsville Independent on Sept. 1. Floyd County will begin Sept. 8. The Martin County School District is currently conducting a survey among parents and staff to help determine when classes will begin for students. School officials note that all dates are subject to change due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. All districts conducted surveys to assist with planning for the new school year.
Lawrence County Superintendent Dr. Robbie Fletcher released the results of his district’s survey Monday, saying that 40.9 percent of parents or guardians favored non-traditional, or stay-at-home, instruction; 39.5 percent preferred traditional, or in-person/at-school, instruction; and 19.6 percent liked a hybrid option, which is a combination of both. “With these results, we are eliminating the hybrid option,” Fletcher said in an email to parents and guardians Monday, adding that students have the option of attending class at school or being taught at home with an “NTI-like system.” “We will continue planning for the upcoming school year based on the selections you made in last week’s survey,” Fletcher said. “If you selected the hybrid option, you will be contacted by someone from your school so you may select one of the two remaining options that works best for you and your family.” Students whose parents chose the at-home option must stay at home until Christmas, Fletcher said in the email.
“We will need the two-week break at Christmas to plan for changes, if students are added for in-person instruction,” he said. Johnson County Superintendent Thom Cochran said in a video posted on YouTube Friday that he had received nearly 3,000 responses to his district’s survey. Like in Lawrence County, Johnson County students can choose to have their children taught online at home or traditionally at school. Online instruction will “require a long-term commitment from students and parents as we will not permit our students to flow between face-to-face and online learning,” Cochran said.
“Additional information will be distributed in the next several weeks,” he said.
The Paintsville Independent School District said on its Facebook page last week that its Sept. 1 start date will give it “additional time to put in place the safety protocols that the Governor and Interim Commissioner put forth in the Kentucky Healthy at School guidance document” that was released two weeks ago. “Our intention as a district is to provide five days of face to face instruction for our students and follow the Healthy at School Guidelines,” the post said. “More details will be forthcoming as we work towards a successful start to the 2020/2021 school year.”
Floyd County Superintendent Danny Adkins said in a Facebook video in June that, according to survey results, 54.9 percent of parents who responded said they would not feel comfortable sending their children back to school, compared to 45.1 percent who did not have a problem with their children returning to the classroom. “This leads us to believe, or to know, actually, that we have to provide an online presence, and in this online presence, we will provide your student with a device, and they will have access to Google Classroom and all the programs we use,” Adkins said. “It’s not going to be like NTI. This is going to be a little upgraded version. We will be introducing new materials, simply because we’ll have teachers streaming classes, either live or recorded.” Results of the Martin County district survey are expected to be released Thursday, with the school board to meet Monday to determine a start date, according to Superintendent Larry James.