Robbinsville – Starting Tuesday, Graham County students were back learning at home, following a vote of the Graham County Board of Education.
In a special called meeting Monday afternoon, the board voted 4-1 to go to virtual learning, from Tuesday until Sept.13. Board member Jonathan Allison cast the sole vote against the measure.
When students return to school, masks will be mandated in all indoor spaces, including on buses. The board will revisit the mask mandate at its Oct. 7 regular meeting. Once students return to face-to-face school, masks will not be required while students are eating or involved in physical activity.
All Black Knight athletic events and other extracurricular activities will be postponed during the virtual period. The board discussed the possibility of imposing mask mandates and occupancy limits for sporting events, but ultimately tabled the motion to revisit it at its September regular meeting.
“To be honest with you, the first two weeks of school have been amazing,” said Robbinsville High School Principal David Matheson. “It was more like the way it used to be and it was really good, but COVID has struck, and it’s struck really hard.”
Matheson said there had been several cases and quarantines at the high school, including among the school’s football, cheerleading, cross country and volleyball teams.
“I have not been wearing a mask in school, because I want them to see my face, and I enjoy seeing their faces,” Matheson said. “You know, we’ve been a year and a half without that, but with the way it is, I definitely would recommend that we go to masks inside.”
Matheson said the school had started Monday with 107 students quarantined, but that the number had risen to 150 by the end of the day.
Robbinsville High school has 352 students enrolled in total this year.
“They’re going to take this home to their parents and to their grandparents, and it’s going to continue to dial wave through the community if we don’t do something to slow it down,” Matheson said.
Superintendent Angie Knight said the initial number for the high school was 110, with Robbinsville Elementary School having 197 in quarantine and Robbinsville Middle School having 43. However, Knight said that approximately 30 students had tested positive, with the remaining number in quarantine.
While Knight emphasized to the board that it was their decision, she spoke in support of the measure.
“Right now there’s not a lot of education going on – for a couple of reasons – and one is if there’s 12 kids absent out of a 20-kid class, then those teachers are having to make sure they’re teaching all of the children, and the kids are really nervous,” Knight explained.
Knight said she sought to prevent the district from having to go to remote learning for a long period of time.
“That is not a good option,” Knight said. “If we have to go home for a week or two to kind of get a grasp own what’s going on, that’s one thing I will do to keep from having to go remotely all the time. I just don’t think that’s a good way to educate children.”
Knight also said the district was also seeing quarantines among its teachers, substitutes and bus drivers, furthering the need to go virtual for a period of time.
“We will try to handle it the best we can and we will try to keep moving forward with the educational process,” Matheson said
Knight also said that students could download their lessons onto their computers at school and work from home without Internet if need be.
“All the principals put teachers on alert this morning that this could be a possibility,” Knight said.
Matheson said he had told his teachers to be ready on Friday, factoring in the sheer number of students going into quarantine.
“Obviously their assignments are on Google Classroom anyway, but I said they needed to start using webcams, filming their lessons and doing Google Meets live, so students that are quarantined can log in during their class times and watch the instruction,” Matheson said.
Knight emphasized that the schools would still be able to serve lunch, even if the district chose to go remote.
“We will be able to serve remotely out of one of the cafeterias and should we go into the next week, we can actually get out in the community with the food truck,” Knight said.
According to a post on the district’s Facebook page, breakfast and lunch will initially be served out of the Robbinsville Elementary School cafeteria to all children aged 0-18. Breakfast will be served from 7:30 –8:30 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.