Sara Stadem | Editor
The decision was made to have the West Central Trojans grades 9-12 move to virtual learning as of Monday, Nov. 16 and will take place through Thanksgiving break.
When asked what prompted this decision, Brad Berens, West Central Superintendent, said, “We were finding on a daily basis the close contact numbers were accelerating and our COVID positive numbers were rising. We also found that teachers were essentially having to teach two classrooms; one being the kids who were not in school and the other one being the kids right in front of them.” He continued to explain that this was a massive time issue for teachers. Another concern was with the number of students that were out due to close contact, that those students are not going to engage as effectively as they would in the classroom. Berens indicated their hope is to help that by saying, “Okay, teachers, let’s focus everything to distance learning so they aren’t trying to split their planning. That was a factor as well.”
Currently, the distance learning is for grades 9-12 only and grades K-8 are still in-person learning at the schools. However, the West Central School District sent their letter to all parents for grades K-12 in the school district, not just high school. “We didn’t want there to be confusion for parents, wondering if everyone was doing this or not,” Berens said.
The letter included the link to the West Central Temporary Virtual Learning Plan which was recently created to assist in the virtual learning process. The Virtual Learning Plan provides information for parents and students indicating their roles in the virtual learning process along with the teacher’s roles and the virtual learning plan for different grade levels.
During this virtual learning, the teachers will be teaching from the West Central High School in their own classrooms. Berens feels this is important for a few reasons. He said, “There is still value in having teachers being able to collaborate and also the online environment can seem very lonely for the teachers where if they have their colleagues close to them, they can still work together as need-be.” Berens continued, “Also, in some cases, we had teachers say ‘please put me in the classroom, home is not as good of an environment for me to work.’”
Teachers will be taking attendance at every class, just like normal, according to Berens. “We expect students to engage and quote-unquote ‘be in school.’”
As of right now, the plan is to bring students back to the classrooms on Monday, Nov. 30. However, like everything with COVID, that could change. “We will bring them back on Nov. 30, we will give ourselves a few days to see how things are going,” Berens said. He continued, “We are going to take it one day at a time. Over the course of the next few months, we know that we could see more ups and downs with the COVID issue.”
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the West Central High School will also be providing a free grab and go meal to any high school student for the school week. The lunch sign-up and additional information is located at the “Lunch Request” button on the West Central website.
If you would like to view the West Central Temporary Virtual Learning Plan, you can access it at