Virtual learning will play a role in the West Liberty Community School District in the future, but facemasks will not.
That was part of what the West Liberty School Board of Education learned Monday, June 7, at their regular school board meeting held at the District Office.
Before eliminating a mask-up mandate that was approved Sept. 21 of last year for the safety and well-being of students and staff because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the board heard a presentation from high school assistant principal Kyle Steffen, giving an Equity Report he put together with co-chairman Adam Loria, the district Activities Director.
Steffen called the past school year “unprecedented” and said teachers and administrators all learned a lot about adapting to a new way of education, including virtual education that he says “is not going away,” even as the pandemic subsides and more and more residents, including youngsters, get vaccinated. “We will likely have virtual learning the rest of our lives,” he said, noting some students and families simply prefer that method of education compared to the traditional in-classroom learning.
He said the pandemic cut down on behavioral issues with students and said the virtual and hybrid (virtual and in-person) models of education presented challenges for the district. He said the district would put together data on all four school units in the district to set a plan for the future.
He said many students did not stay in one learning format through the entire year, with 26.2 percent of students taking on exclusive virtual education through most of the school year. Steffen said the ratio of males and females taking in-person learning was nearly equal although females ran nearly 54 percent in virtual learning methods.
Steffen said Hispanics had the highest number of in-person learners at nearly 54 percent while whites were just over 43 percent and Hispanics dominated the virtual learning category as well at 60 percent, compared to 33.4 percent whites and 4.5 percent Asian.
Regarding socio-economic status, virtual learners were 55.8 percent on the low end while in-person learners saw just 47.6 percent on the low economic status.
Regarding English as a Second Language, 26.1 percent of students were in-person learners while virtual classes saw just 19.7 percent. In special education, 11.1 percent of students participated in in-person learning while only 6.8 percent were virtual learners.
In conclusion, Steffen said the virtual learning platform had a larger percentage of Hispanic students and was generally more diverse than in-person learning, although virtual learning had a high percentage of students classified as low socio-economic status. He also devised that a larger percentage of virtual learning students were non-English Language Learners compared to in-person learning while students with IEP were more likely in-person learners.
In other business, the district approved a new slate of recommended fees and charges for the upcoming school year, including raising lunch and breakfast prices for students by five cents as well as milk. The board also approved costs for band rental, show choir, preschool tuition, registration fees and activity tickets.
The district also changed a 2004 diversity policy, changed working on the district’s open enrollment policy and adopted a “Succession of authority to the Superintendent” policy, aiding in the absence of a superintendent.
Along with approving overnight trip requests in August for students attending a Central College volleyball camp in Pella, the district accepted eight resignations including Alexsia Martinez as an Early Learning Center Paraprofessional, Frankie Faidley as kindergarten special education teacher, Jason Iske as eighth grade boys basketball coach and Catherine Martinez as third grade DL Spanish teacher. Other resignations were also accepted for fifth grade teacher Amanda Bergquist, second grade teacher Elizabeth Beames, Elementary ESL teacher Kara Belk and student council advisor Melanie Clark.
There were also seven new hires approved by the board including Heather Birkhofer as a pre-school teacher, Paige Aguirre as the high school lead cafeteria cook, Kelly Butcher as the GSA sponsor, Melia Larson as a co-sponsor for the National Honor Society, Moran Nichols as yearbook advisor and Kasey Theil as speech coach.
The board won’t meet again until Monday, June 21 for a 6 p.m. meeting, the final one of the year for outgoing superintendent Dr. Diego Giraldo, who attended the June 7 meeting virtually. There will be an activity director’s report at that meeting.