PB, NV administrators pleased with first day

Students in all three Butler County schools returned to in-person classes Monday afternoon while others started classes remotely.

“I think it was emotional,” said Dr. Scott Dill, Poplar Bluff R-I superintendent. “There’s a lot of anxiety that’s built up in the last 153 days for kids, teachers, parents, everyone involved.”

Neelyville R-IV Superintendent Debra Parish said many of the challenges for the day were the same as any other school year.

Both Dill and Parish said there also were new challenges or extra stress on the regular ones because of the pandemic, such as seating schedules and busing.

“I think probably the biggest challenge for a lot of our staff today, front office staff and administrators, was we were entering just a deluge of questions on our remote learning option,” Dill said. “We anticipated that, but the traffic was really high.”

He said about 760 students, about 15% of their enrollment, chose the remote learning option offered by the R-I school. This program is taught by R-I teachers.

That number, Dill said, likely will change over the next week or so. None enrolled Monday, but several asked questions.

He also said there’s a few who initially enrolled in remote learning, which have returned to in-person classes.

“There were some communication issues that I’ve been made aware of,” he said. “I haven’t had the opportunity, unfortunately, to talk to my virtual students.

“I was in the building talking with my students, but one of the things that I dislike about the virtual environment is that if we don’t have access to kids, we don’t get to form those relationships.”

Dill said he’ll be reaching out to those students through the instructors to find out how things are going on the student-end of this new venture.

The remote option in Neelyville has about 30 students, Parish said, which are doing virtual classes in a computer lab on campus.

The district is working to decide on a program to use, which the students can take from home with a district coordinator, who will check in on their progress and work with them.

Parish said the administration team is down to two programs they’re taking webinars with: Launch with the Springfield School District and Missouri Connection, which is produced by intoCareers through the University of Oregon.

Currently, the high school students are working with USA Test Prep, and the elementary students are working in Moby Max.

“We do have a virtual option. It was just not put out in advance,” she said. “We’re acquainting students with it through our virtual open house and so forth.”

Administration with the Twin Rivers R-X School District could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Both Poplar Bluff and Neelyville superintendents said they’re proud of their staff for pulling through and getting back into the classrooms in the midst of the pandemic, so they can educate the students.