SISD to discuss delay to school year

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Snyder ISD trustees will discuss a potential delay to the start of school Thursday.

Superintendent Dr. Eddie Bland said the delay, if implemented, could be up to three weeks.

“Whether it will happen or not, I’m not sure. There are multiple issues,” Bland said. “Obviously COVID is driving the train right now, and we haven’t started slowing down. We’ve actually kind of sped up, spiked here in Scurry County. We just want to make sure we have enough time and we’re comfortable having our teachers ready to roll right into it.” 

Bland said making sure plans for virtual learning in place was important.

“Originally, we thought it was going to be around 20 percent (of students participating in lessons virtually). Preliminary data coming in indicates that it may be around 25 to 30 percent of our parents wanting their students to receive their instruction virtually online through the home learning platform. We just need to make sure we’ve done the proper training for our staff to do that.”

Another factor which might lead school board members to delay the beginning of school involves a delayed shipment of computers.

“We ordered 1,300 Chromebooks to make sure we could do fifth grade down if we had to go (completely) virtual,” Bland said. 

“We ordered those in June with an August 1 delivery date. Don’t know if they’re going to make August 1. In fact, they’ve not given us a ship date, much less a delivery date. It’s just giving us time to make sure we’re better prepared.”

Bland assured parents that the district’s first priority is the safety of students and staff.

“We’re 100 percent committed to protecting the security and safety of students and staff and our community,” he said. “We have a lot of protocols in place for COVID, and we’ve put a lot of work into making sure that if our students choose the virtual home-learning platform, it will be a very rigorous curriculum. It will be just like you’re in the building. If they choose virtual, it won’t be like last spring. There will be attendance expectations and academic expectations.”

Bland said there’s currently a survey on the school district’s website at www.snyderisd.net, located under the heading Live Feed. The deadline for responses is 5 p.m. Thursday.

In other business, the school board will consider approving asbestos abatement. At the most recent school board meeting, board members learned that asbestos had been discovered in two locations: At the Snyder High School Student Center and at the conference center located at the district’s transportation facility.

The agenda asks the board to approve $50,000 total to pay for the abatement at both locations. 

Time will be made available for public comment at the start of the meeting, which will start at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Snyder Intermediate School’s STEM Lab. The meeting is open to the public.