Fayette County’s two smallest public schools, Fayetteville and Round Top-Carmine both resumed fall classes this week.
And superintendents at both campuses, Brandon Schovajsa at Round Top-Carmine and Dr. Jeff Harvey at Fayetteville, had good news to report. In Fayetteville, after a coronavirus outbreak hit the volleyball team earlier this month, all 13 members of the team began the year doing online learning. “We’ve heard from them and they want to be back so bad. We expect them to all be back (in class) Monday. They are excited to get out there on the court again and to see their friends.”
Harvey said the symptoms of the players and staff members that tested positive for coronavirus were mild, “cough and a couple of days of fever, but they are all doing well.”
The 13 players account for half of the 26 students at Fayetteville ISD doing online learning.
The rest of the student body has returned to in-person instruction.
“The kids are super excited to be back and we’ve worked really hard to prepare for them,” Harvey said.
Harvey said the outbreak serves as a great reminder to the rest of the student body about the seriousness of coronavirus.
“It turned out for the best, we were able to act quickly, put our protocals in place and protect even more of our students.”
Over at RT-C, Schovajsa said their incremental return to class worked well. A portion of the student body came back Monday. Another portion Tuesday, and Wednesday was the first full day for everyone’s return.
“The kids have been respectful of the changes and I can’t say enough about the staff. It’s tough on everyone and they have to be flexible,” Schovajsa said.
Schovajsa said one RT-C student did test positive for coronavirus prior to the start of school but had not been on campus.
Just over 10-percent of the students at RT-C are doing the remote learning from home.
He added that bus use among students is down significantly, which has been a positive, because that was one area of biggest concern “because it’s so difficult to distance on the bus.”
Even amidst a pandemic, there are some things that feel normal.
“I’ve talked to other superintendents, and they agree, that as much as we’ve planned for COVID, a lot of the problems we’re dealing with are the ones we deal with at the start of every year – making sure kids are in the right spots, technology issues, things like that.” On another note:
On another note:
Schovajsa said his schooljust sent off a check to the state for $940,000, part of the state’s “Robin Hood” plan in which property-rich school districts help fund property poor ones.
That nearly million-dollar hit (which occurs annually) at RT-C is tough to overcome, and Schovajsa said he’s grateful for donations from this school’s foundation and other community members which recently helped the school purchase more chromebooks, part of a multi-year program that has allowed every student in the district to have one for school use.
“Ninety percent of the cost of those are covered by people in our community,” Schovajsa said.
Five days into the new school year, and La Grange ISD has still avoided having a confirmed positive coronavirus case of anyone that returned to campus.
Various students have been sent home with a variety of ailments, but none have tested positive for coronavirus.
La Grange superintendent Bill Wagner explained Wednesday that in the case of a student or staff member testing positive, the school is required to be contacted immediately by the testing entity, and all parents who have students on that campus would then be notified by the school.
But so far, so good.
When a child does get sick at school – like one elementary student did Wednesday when they threw up in class, Wagner said – the room is cleared, students are taken to another area and the room is thoroughly cleaned.
Parents of the sick child are contacted and they have 45 minutes to pick up their student.
Other LGISD news
To accommodate social distancing guidelines, only 910 home side tickets are on sale for Friday’s home football opener. That’s down from average attendance at Leps football game of between 1,500-1,600 fans. Parents of students involved in the game (players, band, drill team, cheerleaders) were allowed to purchase tickets first and then sales were opened up to previous season ticket holders and finally the general public (all sales online).
For Friday’s game 375 tickets have been allotted to Rockdale on the visitors side.
Visiting team’s band, drill team, etc. are welcome at Leopard Stadium this season, but not so next week when the Leps play at Canyon Lake. Officials there asked the La Grange band and drill team to stay home and have allotted La Grange 210 visiting tickets for the game.
