Give me space, lots of space

The beginning of the school year under regular circumstances can be difficult enough as the summer-time kinks are worked out. Add into that the precautions now required for school districts by the Wyoming Department of Education, and things can be a little less flexible.

Despite that, Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) is working through operations in the age of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). On August 17, the CCSD2 Board of Trustees heard updates from Saratoga Elementary School (SES) and Encampment K-12 School in regards to issues faced by both schools on their first day.

Saratoga Elementary

CCSD2 Superintendent Jim Copeland, in his update to the board, informed them of an issue with the size of the 5th grade class compared to the size of their classroom. Leading up to the 2020/2021 school year, it was expected that there would be approximately 23-24 students entering 5th grade at SES.

“Our 5th grade class was always kind of right around that 25 number and, the last few weeks, it got as high as 29 and now it’s at 27. That is a large class, that is also a new teacher to the district and a new teacher in general,” said Copeland.

Nikkole Schneider is in her first year teaching 5th grade at SES and was hired to replace Joshua Langford, who taught 5th grade in the 2019/2020 school year. In addition to the size of the class, at the time of the meeting, Schneider did not have a paraprofessional to aid with the increased class size. Due to the large size of the class and the small size of the classroom, it was proving difficult for students to be spaced as required by the Wyoming Department of Education.

According to Copeland, he believed there were two immediate options following consultation with SES Principal Darin Jennings and Saratoga Middle High School (SMHS) Principal J.D. Johnson.

One was for the 6th grade students to begin attending school at SMHS and current 6th grade teacher Stephanie Long would teach one half of the 5th grade class. The other option was to hire a new teacher and utilize another classroom in the building.

“Finding a teacher this time of year is just a little more difficult. We did post it just to see and I haven’t really had a chance to look,” Copeland said. 

Jennings informed the Board of Trustees that, as of the meeting, there were three applicants for the position and a potential fourth applicant. The SES principal added that some parents had informed him that, due to the spacing issues, they were willing to move towards virtual learning for their children if he couldn’t find a teacher.

“It’s not an easy decision, I think it’s one that we’re going to be faced (with) for years to come. Our classes aren’t getting smaller at Saratoga Elementary,” said Jennings. “We’re going to have to make decisions for this 5th grade class immediately but, in the long term, are we going to have 6th grade at the middle school or are we going to get portables for outside the school? We’re going to have to do one or the other because we’ve got large classes moving ahead.”

“I’m a parent of a 6th grader, so I’m just curious what it would look like if the 6th graders went up to the high school,” said Trustee Kassey Westring. “Would they be immersed in with the 7th graders and they’d be alternating classes?”

Copeland stated that, instead of having the 6th graders go to various teachers’ rooms similar to the 7-12 grade classes, they would be in one room and teachers would visit the classroom instead.

“We have parents on both sides. One of the parents would like to see something happen right now. I feel like our 6th graders really had a raw deal last year and I want to keep them, I still want to keep them very close to our decision making,” Jennings said. “That being said is why I would lean towards not doing something versus kicking the 6th graders up to the high school without some very thorough thought.”

With an advertisement for the position of a second 5th grade teacher recently placed, the Board of Trustees did not take any action. 

Encampment K-12 School

While SES was dealing with an unexpected class size on the first day of school, Encampment dealt with attempts to bypass the mask requirement. Under audience participation, a concerned parent brought a recent social media post to the attention of the Board of Trustees. 

The post, which had been made in a public community group, stated that the parent had been able to take their children to school without masks, adding that they were allowed to stay throughout the day. The post went on to add that other students were asked to leave the school due to not having masks.

“Today we had two parents that I’m aware of, one that I talked to myself. (I) became aware that he had brought his kids to school and brought a note that said he had exemptions based on health and religious reasons,” Copeland said. “So, it caught us a little off guard because we had not heard anything about religious exemptions, to be quite honest. His kids went on into their rooms, stayed in their cohort.”

Copeland informed the Board of Trustees that he had talked with the first parent and informed him of what would be needed for a medical exemption. 

“The district nurse called Carbon County Public Health. For a medical exemption, a person has to have a medical provider state the medical condition that’s based on asking for an exemption and then we have to give that request to Carbon County Public Health and they approve that or not,” said Copeland.

According to Copeland, the first parent was “not real happy” about the requirement, but had stated he would be getting a medical exemption. Copeland also informed the Board of Trustees of another parent who had taken their kids at school without masks but, to his knowledge, the parent had not provided any documentation for a medical exemption.

“I told Mr. (Mike) Erickson that, really, she probably needed to come get her kids. So, maybe that was inconsistent. We were just trying not to be hugely disruptive and yet still work with parents,” Copeland said. “I told the dad that was going to get the medical documentation that they would not be allowed to come back tomorrow without the medical documentation and then it would have to go to the public health, so it would be a process.”

After Copeland informed the board of the situations, the Board of Trustees commented on the importance of working within the requirements provided by the Wyoming Department of Education.

“As Jim said before, we don’t want to be mask gestapo, but we have to follow our rules that we submitted to (the) Wyoming Department of Education or else we’re in limbo,” said Chairman James Sewell.

“I don’t think we realized when we talked about all the options, that we did get the option to go back to school,” said Trustee Karen Condict. “A lot of school districts could not even get that option and they’re very sad to all be at home doing school instead of getting the option to come.” 

The next meeting of the Carbon County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees will be at 5 p.m. on September 21 at the Central Office in Saratoga.