State of emergency, COVID-19 restrictions lifted
Robbinsville – Nearly 1,200 Graham County children ended their summer break Sunday night, and got up bright and early Monday to a cool, foggy morning for the first day of school.
This is the first time Graham County Schools have opened under normal conditions since the COVID-19 pandemic initially shut down schools statewide in March 2020.
Now, that means no masks, no distance learning and if a child is sick and needs to be sent home, only that child goes home – and not the ones who are in close proximity.
In another sign of normalcy, members of Robbinsville High School’s newly-promoted senior class were up late Sunday night and early Monday morning painting the school rock with Class of 2023 livery – and guarding it against possible retaliation from lower classes.
At Robbinsville Elementary School, last year’s bumper crop of kindergartners resulted in a bumper crop of first-graders this year, Principal Jaime Hooper told faculty at a meeting last week.
Superintendent Angie Knight estimated enrollment at 330 for Robbinsville High School in grades 9-12; 260 at Robbinsville Middle School, for grades 6-8; 560 for Robbinsville Elementary School for grades K-5; and 50 enrolled in Graham County preschool.
County donations
Robbinsville Elementary School opened its doors to pupils with all their school supplies provided by Graham County government and paid for with American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 relief money.
The contributed school supplies kept Kim Crisp, clerk to the county Board of Commissioners, busy last week filling the mother of all shopping lists.
“We purchased all school supplies for every child K-5th from the list that the teacher supplied,” Crisp told The Graham Star.
She said the list included backpacks, earphones, earbuds, crayons, erasers, pencils, pouches, composition books, water bottles, folders, glue sticks, markers, binders, Clorox wipes, Kleenex, scissors, highlighters, Germ-X, clipboards, notebook paper, colored pencils, index cards.
“I ordered for 82 kindergarten, 99 first grade, 80 second grade, 96 third grade, 75 fourth grade and 88 fifth grade,” she said.
County Finance Director Becky Garland said the Board of Commissioners felt that, with families facing high inflation, it was important to fund the school supplies for all the kids kindergarten through 5th grade.
“We ordered them last week and so far we have spent approximately $24,000,” Garland said last week. “There are a few more expenses to come, but I do not anticipate spending more than $30,000. We worked off of the school supplies list that was provided by the school system.”
Garland said the expenditures qualify under the act in two important ways:
* First, families in Graham County “have and will continue to experience disproportionate impacts from the COVID-19, especially the resulting inflationary economy. The costs of goods has risen dramatically and the earnings of our residents have not followed the increases. Couple that with families having to travel outside of the county with gas 2-3 times higher than last year, creates this disproportionate impact.”
* Second, because Graham County received less than $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding, the county was able to claim the standard allowance, which Garland said gives the commissioners a bit more leverage and flexibility in allocating the funds.
“ARPA was designed to help communities and their members recover from the pandemic,” Garland said. “One of the best ways to use ARPA funds is to help our struggling families during this difficult time.”
Another $5,000 was donated by Church Mouse Ministries Thrift Store to Robbinsville Elementary School teachers for classroom supplies and $1,000 was donated by an anonymous benefactor via the Lady Dragons Red Hat group for Robbinsville High School students in need.