About 54,000 students will return to classes in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools on Monday.
Tricia McManus, now in her second year as superintendent, spoke to the Winston-Salem Journal on many topics. We’ll start with what she’s most excited about about her new school year.
“We tried to narrow our focus to these two big rocks, but a focused focus on these rocks will have an impact this year.
“One is about the culture and climate of our school, the environment we seek to create for our students, an environment that is restorative rather than punitive, one where we see more consistency in behavior from school to school. Children must be able to learn from their mistakes, stay in their school community, feel accepted, learn to move on from their mistakes, and become great adults.
People are also reading…
“Another big rock is on literacy, providing the support that elementary school teachers need to deliver quality literacy education throughout the day. ) is to do it through grade 12 across content disciplines.
“Another new thing is to emphasize the voice of the student. But they said the same thing. They need this heavy outside time. Even homerooms and morning meetings encourage scholars to actually speak. It needs to be more than “You’re walking into this school, and it’s going to be a scholar all day.” think. ”
According to McManus, one of the first and easiest steps is to tighten the locks on all the doors in the building. This includes entrance doors and classroom doors.
“This is the most minimal (step),” McManus said. “We should use what we already have. Is it new? No. Will it be enforced? Yes.
In multi-building schools, such as East Forsyth High School and West Forsyth High School, students are required to enter their student identification number on a newly installed keypad that controls the building door. The keypad is one of his voter-approved security measures for his 2016 bond.
Students can expect to see portable metal detectors in use from time to time. In March, the school district awarded her a $322,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Education’s Center for School Safety for 73 walk-through metal detectors to be used in schools and administration buildings as needed. it was done.
Each middle school and high school is provided with two portable metal detectors. While metal detectors are not meant to be used every day, school leaders have the flexibility to use them as needed for special events at their school or campus.
“You’re going to see it go up on a regular basis,” McManus said. “The best deterrent is to put them up regularly so the kids can see them.
A week after the 2021-22 school year, one student brought a gun onto campus and shot another student dead on Mount Tabor. The school district seized a total of seven guns.
Improving the student experience
McManus has frequently said in recent months that local students say they don’t feel a sense of belonging while in school. To address this, McManus makes it a goal for every student in the district to participate in some kind of extracurricular activity.
In June, the school board approved partnerships with local organizations to provide schools with pre- and after-school care, tutoring and mentoring programs. Programs paid for by federal COVID relief dollars include YMCA, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and Youth Style Fitness.
“We want every student to be connected to something at school, whether it’s clubs, sports, or the student union. The only way to know what it is is to know every student. We share In high school we make sure that in the first few weeks of school we have one-on-one conversations with every student. Every student has a conversation so what excites you If clubs don’t exist, how do we create them?” she said.
The start of the school year looks much like 2019 — no mask mandates and students returning to classrooms.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly relaxed some of its guidelines for schools, calling for an end to quarantine for people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID. In its recommendations, the CDC noted that people who have been infected or vaccinated have higher levels of immunity.
CDC advises people living in high-infection counties to wear high-quality masks indoors. However, the city does not have a mask mandate, so it is unlikely that school districts will recommend their own masks.
McManus said the district will continue to receive guidance from local and state health departments and the ABC Science Collaborative, a Duke University-led scientist program that advises districts, and will continue to post a dashboard listing new cases on its website. Stated. .
“We still take it seriously,” McManus said of the pandemic. “Schools will continue to have COVID coordinators. Hand sanitizer will be available, hand washing and classroom cleanliness will be enhanced. ”
The school board recently approved the purchase of 215 outdoor tables using federal COVID relief funds, but the order remains backlogged due to supply chain issues. The district already has 200 outdoor tables that are used by schools throughout the county.
The back-to-school story across the country is teacher shortages, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is no exception. McManus said she’s not in “panic mode,” but the district expects her to have nearly 100 vacancies on the first day of school, and the district can provide instruction without increasing the burden on teachers. It leads to finding a way to deliver.
One example is paying teachers more money to teach additional students because classrooms are vacant.
“There are a lot of solutions to add to people’s plates, but it makes up for them,” McManus said.
In addition to compensation, the district plans to ease teachers’ demands in other ways. This includes ensuring all teachers have tax-free lunches and planning periods, areas that teachers have had to sacrifice on a regular basis.
“All adults should decompress for 30 minutes and take a bite while not supervising the child,” she said. Someone said to me, How do we do that? It’s a strategic thing that we have to do.”
336-727-7420
.
