Ohio County Schools Proposes Aug. 23 Start Date for 2022-23 School Year | News, Sports,

photo by: Photo by Alan Olson

Susan Nolte and Scot Kangisser present a 2022-23 school calendar proposal.

WHEELING — Ohio County Schools may begin on Aug. 23 for the 2022 fall semester, under a calendar proposed Tuesday evening.

No members of the public appeared for comment at the brief meeting held prior to the Board of Education meeting. According to the proposed calendar, Ohio County Schools staff would start their year on Aug. 18, with students following one week later on Aug. 23.

Spring break would begin April 3 with students returning April 10. The district would conclude the school year on May 31, with Wheeling Park High School seniors graduating May 22.

This calendar option was advised by 926 survey participants, according to calendar committee member Scot Kangisser, which also informed the decision to extend students’ winter break by one day.

The decision to place a professional development day on Dec. 22 was overwhelmingly favored by respondents, of which 822 people voted in favor. Only 100 respondents voted for the alternative date of Dec. 4.

“This is a combination. We had three calendars we were looking at with different dates, and through the survey, we kind of mashed them together to come up with this one,” Kangisser said.

Breaking from this year’s calendar, 66% of survey comments favored including remote learning options in the event that more than five snow days are used in the 2022-23 year. This year did not allow for that option, necessitating one make-up day after using six snow days.

Susan Nolte, human resources director for Ohio County Schools, said the administrations of the county’s schools had been split on whether or not they would be able to provide remote learning this year. Middle and high schools broadly felt they would be able to meet those requirements, but elementary schools did not.

“In October, we really didn’t feel we were in a place at some of our grade levels to be able to accomplish that, and change on a dime,” Nolte said. “But since October, we’ve been meeting with our elementary school principals — the middle and high school principals were confident they could make that change very quickly, but the elementary schools did not. But since October, we feel that we can now offer that, and overwhelmingly, people want that to be an option.

“The elementary principals feel that they’ve worked with their staffs and have a plan to be able to address that. It might not be electronic, but it might be with a packet of information.”

Nolte added that the primary difficulty with elementary-level remote learning seems to be with the back-and-forth of Chromebooks between school and home, when students may not yet be accustomed to taking them home and back.

The next public comment period for the school calendar will be at 5:45 p.m. on March 28.

In other matters, State Sen. Owens Brown, D-Ohio, spoke out against Senate Bill 268 until he reached the time limit at the subsequent board meeting, regarding the effects of the bill which exempts students from compulsory education who are enrolled in a learning pod or micro school. Brown described the legislation, which completed legislative action on Saturday, as “very destructive to public schools,” which he described as foundational to the nation.

Brown, who has served as the president of the West Virginia Chapter of the NAACP, said he fears “segregation” of students under the new system, along lines of class, rather than race.

“What I see happening with this particular bill is the re-entrenchment of segregated schools, not necessarily along racial lines, but along community lines,” he said. “This bill could be very destructive to our education.”

Brown added that the bill requires only that a teacher at these micro schools or learning pods have earned a high school diploma or equivalent, which he said was “a slap in the face” to professional teachers who worked hard to earn a degree in education.

“I don’t believe everybody can teach; teaching is an art and a profession, with techniques,” Brown said. “They’re undermining teachers, basically, they’re telling teachers that the four years you spent earning your degree was worth nothing, because anybody can do it. This could result, possibly in the future, in teachers being laid off, possibly losing children from the school system.”