PKM HIGHLIGHTS
April 20-24, 2020
Dear Bill, Darin, Michele, Todd & Pat
Update on Meal Distribution
On April 20, 2020, our BCS Child Nutrition staff served our county's children 22,670 meals (breakfast and lunch). We are happy to report a 2,160 meal increase! During the COVID-19 Emergency Feeding, we have distributed just short of 120,000 meals and are looking forward to doing even more. This mighty school lunch hero team of 14 was led by our South Middle School Cafeteria Manager, Sandy Nadenbousch, and Tracy Heck, Executive Director of Child Nutrition and Wellness. We want to thank the following COVID-19 Emergency Feeding Team as follows: Lewis Harden, Mike Green, Amber Boeckmann, Kelli Duranko, Marie Taylor, Jennifer Timmons, Alicia Dunham, Becky Gayheart, Lora Tillert, Crystal Warner, and Tara Mora. We would also like to give a shout-out to Todd Cutlip and Katie Worthington for delivering meals to their students!
As we await USDA guidance for summer feeding, our Office of Child Nutrition staff continues to plan for possibilities proactively. Our goal to feed our students will be met throughout the summer!
State Superintendent Update Thursday, April 21
· This week, State Superintendent Clayton Burch, held a video conference meeting with all 55 school district superintendents to provide an update in relationship to the news we learned early in the week that students and staff would not be returning to school this year. Based on that decision by the Governor, the expectation is for online learning and meal distribution to continue. At this time, the plan is to continue to provide meals until the end of the school year which may be through June 30. The WVDE is requesting a waiver from the Federal Government which could continue meal distribution through the summer. More information will be forthcoming on this request. In anticipation of summer school and planning, we will be receiving more guidance on the design of the summer programs either in person, depending on physical distancing, or through remote learning. Note, at this time, some higher education institutions have cancelled summer school face-to-face and are only doing online classes. The state superintendent is also working with a taskforce addressing graduation and updating the plans that school districts are developing for recognizing graduates this year. The West Virginia Department of Education is working and sharing information about the CARES Stimulus Funding that will be made available to school districts and will provide a great deal of flexibility for how we support learning, professional development and ensure safe learning environments for students. Superintendent Burch also asked that we continue to inform and request families and staff to complete the census because future funding is dependent on that information for the state and localities. All school districts along with the WVDE are working on guidance in how to require staff to return to work to support closing schools for the year. Counties like Berkeley are working with the local health department for guidelines on how to bring staff and students back to clean out personal belongs, classrooms and begin cleaning buildings for the upcoming school year. Finally, the WVSSAC has determined that the State Basketball Tournament and spring sports are cancelled. The WVSSAC 3-week summer practice window is being moved to July pending further notice. Our leadership team is working on all of these topics and putting plans in place that we will communicate shortly.
Sr. Staff Plus Pandemic Meetings
· This week the Sr. Staff Plus Pandemic team met and begin to shift its focus as a result of the information from the Governor about students not returning to school. There were several issues that we are looking at in the short-term and long-range in thinking about wrapping up the school year, planning for the summer academic programs and thinking about the start of the upcoming school year. Because of the diversity of the team and the knowledge and expertise at the table the group is creating plans for how we will conduct our work either in person, virtually or in a blended environment. We all agreed that contingency plans are required that have us all thinking through “if then, what”. In relationship to the work being addressed by this group we have an advanced planning team that is meeting next week to create contingency plans for summer and beginning of the school year. The priority will be if we are not able to return to schools this summer and/or this fall what plans do we need to have in place, how will learning continue, what professional development and training will teachers need to continue learning and how do we begin to put plans in motion to address the different scenarios that may occur. The focus of our work will be to be prepare and flexible. The two elements that I see as being pivotal are providing teachers and staff with the tools and knowledge to continue learning through remote and/or blended learning and second, to get the resources in the hand of students and families so learning can continue and happen.
Interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting
· This week Elaine Bobo and I spoke with news reporter Liz McCormack Eastern Panhandle reporter for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Liz was doing a news story on how teachers, social workers, school counselors and administrators are connecting with students and families during a time when families are quarantined in their homes. We shared with Liz how we are regularly connecting and checking in with students and families and for those that are hard to reach and how staff are actually making home visits while practicing safe social distance. I highlight the many steps we have taken since school has been closed in connecting via video, telephone and through emails and how these communiques have only continued to improve with our weekly contact rates continuing to improve. One of the challenges is reaching homes in our community that have limited internet services that make some of the new technologies obsolete and having us relying on traditional methods of reaching families either by telephone or in person.
Interview Processes Update
This week we continued with the interview process for selecting three leadership positions. First round interviews with the screening committee were held for the Executive Director of Facilities and the Musselman Middle Principal positions. Second round panel interviews for these two positions are slated for Tuesday, April 28. Second round panel interviews for the Executive Director of Transportation were also held this week and input from the panel will be passed along to the superintendent. The plan for all of these positions is to make recommendations for appointment to the school board during the May meetings.
Service and Professional Staff Conference Calls
We continue to meet with our service and professional representatives – Jana Woofter, Mallory Painter, Justin Mauck, Jessica Salfia, Georgian Lang, Debbie Sloat, Ricky Mason, and Mark Weisenberg along with our Human Resources Team – Dr. Justin Schooley, Karen Hensell and Lewis Mullenax to provide updates, gain their input and listen to issues raised by their membership. This week we discussed the recent announcement of closing schools for the reminder of the year: the change in the election day to June 9th and how this effect our employees; scheduling of faculty senate meetings; posting of jobs; the roll out of Employment Assistant Program at the next board meeting; and how we are planning to proceed with ending the school year with students and teachers clearing out their personal materials and then custodians beginning to clean buildings. I also wanted to thank the team, most notably Jana Woofter who recently spoke at the school board meeting during Citizen’s Forum on the upcoming year school calendar recognize the collaborative work that had been done in developing the calendar. We plan to meet again next week on Wednesday, April 29th at 3 pm.
Kindergarten Registration Update
Communication Update Week of April 20th
We continue to see the clarity, frequency and timeliness of our communication in different media play a part in keeping our staff, students, families and community in the know and aware of what is happening in BCS. This communication is also a measure of building confidence, trust, understanding and recognition of all the work initiated for our students and families. I want to applaud everyone for adopting many new approaches and methods of communicating given the current pandemic. All of us continue to be creative and innovative – thank you.
This week we pushed out several communiques to include our staff, families and community resulting in an increase of 84, 778 this week and a grand total of 836,156 views. On the web during the week of April 15-22nd we increased viewership to more than 15,000 users up 17% from the previous week. Our social media outreach has included 270 posts from March and April resulting in more than 18,800 engagements and 530 inbound positive messages from school and community members. During March 12-Apr. 22nd there have been a total of 640 messages through NTouch coming school-based and centrally. Finally, this week we shared a total of five videos including the superintendent’s update, thank you and recognition of our nurses and 3 student and staff videos to appreciate the work of those keeping our community going. I really appreciate the leadership that is being demonstrated by all of us to keep the lines of communication open especially at this time when we are making a transition for how all of us need to work and operate today.
Here are a couple of great highlights from the week thanking members of our health care teams
Professional Development Continues with Focus on Literacy (Orton Gillingham)
Kidz Power Pacs(KPP) and Berkeley County BackPack Program (BPP) Update
Dr. Veronique Walker who is the lead liaison along with Christi Heaton and Joni Greenberg continue to work with the two food distribution programs that served our students for several years: The Community Combined Ministries Kidz Power Pacs (KPP), which began serving families in 2007; and The Berkeley County BackPack Program (BPP), which began serving families in 2010. Both programs provide weekend and summer supplies of food to identified Berkeley County Schools (BCS) students .The programs have continued to serve our students during COVID-19 and been a component of our meal distribution program. I also want to recognize our school counselors and social workers who have also played a role in successfully supporting this effort.
To provide a little bit more knowledge and background of the work that these two non-profits are providing Dr. Walker shares the following information. KPP arranges for their assigned schools to pick up food from KPP’s main headquarters. School staff then distribute the food by either (a) arranging distribution dates and times where families may retrieve their food, or (b) delivering the food to participating families’ homes. KPP, during May - August 2020, will begin monthly distributions of food where families may get their food at several different locations throughout the county.
BPP has arranged bi-monthly weekend distributions where families the serve may obtain their food. BPP plans to continue the food service through the summer and enrolls new families who may find themselves in need as a result of being impacted by COVID-19.
A significant number of school personnel work with both programs to help pack and distribute food, ensuring to follow the safety guidelines set forth by the CDC, Berkeley County Health Department, and BCS. Messages about food distribution dates, times, and locations are communicated to participating families via school counselors, social workers, teachers, administrators, bus drivers and NTouch.
Community Eligibility Program (CEP) and Non- Community Eligibility Program (CEP) Schools
I want to inform you of a new federally funded program to help our families in both CEP and Non-CEP schools to receive food online and being led by Tracy Heck and our Child Nutrition Office in collaboration with Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). Each of the non-CEP schools will received an NTouch message that we are required to send.
On March 18, 2020, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Families First Act). This action created a set of expansions to USDA food assistance programs designed to provide relief to families across the nation struggling with the economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 public health emergency. One of the reforms was the creation of a Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program to provide those families whose children that eat under free or reduced benefit with additional funds to offset extra food expenses due to school closures.
This federally funded benefit is tied to free/reduced meal status; this includes all students in CEP schools, Directly Certified students, and those who are eligible through free and reduced applications. New free and reduced applications will be accepted over the next few weeks, as determined by WVDE and DHHR. It is a collaborative state plan through WVDE and DHHR, which is waiting to be approved by the USDA. It provides students who would have been eligible or had access to free and reduced meals at school if not for the COVID-19 closures, an electronic bank transfer card with an established daily rate of benefit. These cards will be issued by DHHR and can be used anywhere EBT is accepted (such as grocery stores). Benefits will not accrue over the summer months, but funds will be available through (tentatively) August 31. WVDE is currently working with DHHR on an “opt-out” process for households that are deemed eligible but may not want the benefit.
Thought for the Week:
As many of you who have come to know me in the short time since joining BCS, I like to tell stories. Stories are a great way to convey messages, provide a little bit of entertainment and share an antidote in a kind and positive way. Some of you have remarked, “he seems to have a story for everything”, or “where does he come up with all these stories”. Perhaps a product of longevity.
So recently, I have been receiving a number of emails from students and staff given the fact that many are home and quarantined. Last week I shared with you a message I received from one of our middle schoolers. Well this past weekend I received a nice message from a member of our custodian team who I have become acquainted with through my frequent visits to her school. She wanted to let me know that she was ready to come back to school and get to work. I of course thanked her and said I too was ready to return though we needed to wait a little while longer. A couple of days later, I received another email from her wanting me to begin the process of cleaning schools and let me know we got to go! While I liked her spirit, energy and enthusiasm, I recognize unfortunately we are going to need to wait a little while longer. I knew repeating my earlier response was perhaps not the best approach and it brought me back to my days as a swim coach at a local community pool where I coached boys and girls ages 6 to 18 years of age. For those of you who work with young children I applaud you, as they are a ball of constant energy. Needless to say, many of the students in the 8 and under bracket expend much of their energy outside of the water, running around and horse playing. By the time they were ready to compete they were exhausted.
So, the other coach and I came up with a story about the two lightening bugs. You may have heard a similar story that we would tell the young kids to get them to conserve their energy for their swim.
The story goes like this: there were two lightening bugs that were captured by the kids in the neighborhood and placed in a jar. The one lightening bug thought he could knock the lid off the jar and jumped up and down trying to open the jar. Needless to say, he expended a lot of energy to no avail. The other lightening bug waited. She knew that at some point the lid was going to be opened and when that happened she would fly out (playing a little possum). And as the story goes, the neighborhood kids opened the jar to see what was wrong with the one lightening bug and out she flew, while the other lightening was so exhausted he could only lay at the bottom of the jar.
We have a little while longer to wait. Now is a time to think, plan and be ready. Save our energy – we are going to need it.
Thank you, I am encouraged by the progress we are making and know we will continue on that path, because of all of you.
PKM Calendar for upcoming week: Apr. 27-May 1, 2020
Mon. Apr. 27th
Staff Meeting
Routine & Review Meetings
Board Meeting
Tues., Apr. 28th
Routine & Review Meetings
Leadership Academy Finale
Wed., Apr. 29th
Sr Staff Pandemic Meeting
PreK Meeting
CEFP Meetings
Thurs., Apr. 30th
Advance Team Meeting
Fri., May 1st
Routine Meetings
Meal Count to date - 119,610
Week of March 16: 10,266
March 23rd: 31,354
April 1st: 34,810
April 13th: 20,510
April 20th: 22,670
Please view the following attachments and Pat's Picks:
Patrick K. Murphy, Ed.D., Superintendent
Email: patrick.murphy@k12.wv.us
Phone: 304-582-0880
Twitter: @PKMSupt