After meeting for several hours last Friday with the Director of the Phelps-Maries Health Department, the Maries R-1 School District’s administrative team determined there will be no in-person or on-campus summer school this year. Instead, the district will offer a virtual summer school program for students to participate in at home if they choose and a laptop can be borrowed from the school by those students who do not have a computer.

Maries R-1 Superintendent Mark Parker said they met with health department director Ashley Wann and talked about the guidelines recently released pertaining to schools reopening. He said as they went over the current guidelines for reopening and seeing what the school district would be able to have in place by the start date of June 1, they determined they could not possibly have things ready for the summer school program. Instead, they will need to go with a virtual program for this summer.

“We wanted to have a seated summer school session but we felt we could not have some of the precautionary steps in place by that time,” Parker said. They felt that as the summer progresses, the guidelines may change or become more lax so the transition into regular school may have been easier. They were hoping students would take advantage of the opportunity over the summer. “At this time we will continue to plan for the fall and getting back to class in August,” he said.

Students who are interested can have virtual summer school classes provided through LAUNCH, a virtual school program with the Springfield Public Schools. There will be a variety of classes students can enroll in. Students need internet access to participate in the virtual program. If a student has internet but not a computer, one can be provided of them to use during the summer school session, then returned to the school.

High School Principal Ian Murray said parents and students can call the high school or elementary school to enroll in the virtual classes. Once a student is enrolled, the teacher from Springfield will ask them to join the class. Murray said this is free to Maries R-1 students. There will be a cost to the school district, but the summer school enrollment will count toward the district’s ADA and the school will receive funding from it.

Parker said he hopes parents and students understand why the administrative team had to make this decision. “As of right now, so many things need to be considered in order to provide an educational opportunity and at the same time, follow the recommendations of the CDC and health department.”

For the members of the Class of 2020, graduation will be held June 19 or 20 and if social distancing is still in place, it probably will be held at the Vienna City Park at 7:30 p.m. The park has been reserved for it. If it is raining, it may be moved to the following day, June 20. It is possible graduation may be moved back even further into the summer to July 17 and 18.

When graduation was discussed at the school board meeting last month, Parker said with the social distancing (six feet apart), it would be easier to have graduation at the park. Parker said the health department could cancel it if there is an uptick in the number of people infected with the virus.

Also in his report to the board at the April meeting, Murray was proud to report on the WorkKeys tests, 32 of the 33 VHS students who took the test passed it. Some four students scored at the platinum level, and Murray said this is the first time the school has had anyone reach the platinum level score. The WorkKeys is an assessment of job skill, analysis the skill training designed to measure foundational and personal skills as they apply to the workplace.

In other business, Parker said the May school board meeting date will be moved to Tuesday, May 26 as Memorial Day falls on the regular meeting date. The regular June meeting is June 29 but a special meeting is set for June 15 to reorganize the board following the June 2 election.