Districts will use summer school to catch up from COVID

By: Derrick Forsythe, Correspondent
Posted 6/4/21

There will be minimal time for area students to rest and reboot before returning to campuses for summer school this month. Both the Warren County R-III and Wright City R-II school districts will have …

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Districts will use summer school to catch up from COVID

Posted

There will be minimal time for area students to rest and reboot before returning to campuses for summer school this month. Both the Warren County R-III and Wright City R-II school districts will have less than a week between the conclusion of regular session and the start of summer school. This tighter window comes as a result of a state mandate preventing districts from beginning school more than two weeks prior to Labor Day.

“Any time you don’t have any break between the regular school year and summer school, it impacts summer school enrollment,” said R-II Superintendent Dr. Chris Berger. “Our numbers are a little down for summer school.”

Wright City began summer school on Tuesday of this week, while R-III will begin on June 8, running Tuesday through Friday.

R-II is holding classes at West Elementary, the middle school and the high school. The only in-person classes at the high school will be Spanish I and Spanish II, as the remainder are credit recovery courses being done virtually.

The approximately 525 students signed up for summer school at Wright City will still be required to wear masks. One change from the regular school year is that students will once again be able to eat lunch together in the cafeteria, after eating in their classrooms the past nine months.

The curriculum students learn will also look different, as staff focuses on helping make up any deficits students may have suffered as a result of the pandemic. 

“There has been a bigger focus on enrichment activities historically,” said Berger. “This year, enrichment will be in the afternoon and mornings will be devoted to instruction. We’re going to take some year-end data of all the students who enrolled and look at deficits that occurred since last March and try to attack those areas.”

R-II will also be offering an extended summer school for two weeks in July for those students who are deemed to have more significant gaps in learning. This will be by invitation only, with letters sent to parents regarding the program.

Warren County R-III will hold its classes at Rebecca Boone Elementary for kindergarten through fourth grade, Black Hawk Middle School for fifth through eighth and the high school for ninth through 12th. Classes will begin at 7:40 a.m. and conclude at 3:15 p.m. Classes will be in-person only, with no virtual summer school options available. 

Transportation will be provided through modified bus routes.

Warren County has around 1,000 students enrolled for summer school and will also be requiring masks, a decision made by the R-III school board following discussion at its May 27 work session. 

“The reason for this is that our insurance won’t cover us if we go against the advice of the Warren County Health Department, Centers for Disease Control or the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education,” explained R-III Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith. “If one of those organizations would approve us to not have to wear a mask, then our insurance company would cover us and we would look to lift that mandate.”

He said the masks also strongly influence keeping schools open and preventing students from having to quarantine.

“If students are in close contact with a positive COVID case, and we have a mask mandate, only the close contact has to quarantine if both students were wearing masks,” said Klinginsmith. “You must have a mask mandate in place for that rule to apply.”

Warrenton School District, Wright City School District

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