7 rural CCSD schools reopen, but changes evident

Students at seven rural Clark County School District campuses headed back to in-person classes last week, while more than 300,000 of their urban peers are relying fully on remote instruction.

Four schools are operating with full-time in-person classes: Perkins Elementary School in Moapa, Lundy Elementary on Mount Charleston, Reid Elementary in Searchlight and Goodsprings Elementary.

Three district schools are operating under a hybrid model with a mix of in-person and remote instruction. All three are in Moapa Valley: Bowler Elementary in Logandale and Lyon Middle and Moapa Valley High in Overton.

At Perkins, Lisa Wolfley said goodbye to her 10-year-old twins, who were wearing backpacks and face masks, before they headed into the building on Aug. 24, the first day of school.

Dozens of other parents were also dropping off their children at the rural school about an hour from Las Vegas. School buses also pulled into a drop-off loop, and students practiced social distancing as they got off.

Wolfley, a member of the the School Organizational Team at Perkins, said she’s “super grateful” her twins, Morgan and Connor, who are in fifth grade, can go back to school full time amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘So many different changes’

Parents and students are still worried, though.

“We’re dealing with anxiety and being nervous and scared, like the kids are,” Wolfley said.

In addition to her two elementary students, Wolfley has one child in middle school and two in high school, one at Moapa Valley High and one who opted for fully online learning this year via Nevada State High School.

Her daughter Morgan said she’s scared about the new school year.

“There are so many different changes,” she said.

At Perkins, those changes include requiring parents or visitors to stay out of the school building, keeping classes of students together all day, eating breakfast and lunch in classrooms, practicing social distancing, staggering outdoor playtimes and requiring everyone to wear a face mask. Drinking fountains also have been turned off, and students are asked to bring their own water bottles.

In an email to the Review-Journal on Friday, Wolfley said the first week of school went “pretty well.” Her fifth-graders were energetic and happy when they came home from school each day, she said.

“They love their teachers, and they loved interacting with their friends,” Wolfley said. “Their only complaint was recess was boring because they aren’t allowed to play on any playground equipment or use any playground balls or toys.”

Her 10th-grader and seventh- grader returned to in-person classes two days a week and are doing distance learning from home three days a week, Wolfley said.

“Being at school physically was great for them,” she said. “They were nervous to start, but I feel like by the end of day one, they were a lot more relaxed and felt that the teachers were understanding and patient.”

Distance learning days have been a challenge for many reasons, including first-day issues with Canvas, the school district’s primary online learning system, Wolfley said.

“And I think that goes for just about everyone in the district,” she said.

Wolfley said her daughter in 10th grade corresponded with a teacher for a distance learning-only class to get clarification on an assignment.

“It was nice to get a thorough response, which helped her feel more confident in her work,” she said. “However, what took 24 hours to get answers for would’ve been a two-minute question in a physical classroom. So patience is certainly needed.”

Wolfley said it’s difficult keeping up with her children’s different schedules, but she noted she is grateful for teachers “doing everything they can to help our kids under these conditions.”

‘Circumstances are unique’

Overton parent Teresa Holzer, who has two children, ages 16 and 17, said this about Moapa Valley High’s reopening under a hybrid model: “Partially back is better than not at all.”

Families also have the option of pursuing full distance learning for their students using Canvas.

Wolfley said the school district worked with Perkins Elementary, which has about 136 students, to allow it to reopen.

“Our circumstances are unique compared to Las Vegas,” she said.

Moapa Valley is a rural area about 65 miles northeast of Las Vegas with fewer than 7,000 residents. And it has had few COVID-19 cases, Wolfley said.

As of Wednesday, the Southern Nevada Health District had reported seven cases in Moapa’s 89025 ZIP code, 16 in Overton’s 89040 ZIP code and 18 in Logandale’s 89021 ZIP code.

Hal Mortensen, principal at both Moapa Valley High and Perkins Elementary, said Thursday that the schools are taking precautions and following Gov. Steve Sisolak’s mandates as well as Southern Nevada Health District guidelines.

Mortensen said he doesn’t want the schools to be in a situation in which in-person instruction is shut down because protocols aren’t being followed.

“We don’t want this to fail,” he said. “We don’t want to be lax. We don’t want to go that route at all because we want to succeed.”

At Moapa Valley High, a couple of students tried to slip their face masks down during classes Monday and had to be informed of the requirement to wear a mask before complying, Mortensen said. School employees followed up with phone calls to their parents.

Holzer, vice chair of the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board, said some families are choosing to home-school instead of enrolling in the school district’s distance learning-only option.

During an advisory board meeting in late July, Della Frank, who leads the district’s Indian Education Opportunities Program, said some Moapa Valley families opposed the full-time return to class.

She said that students on the Moapa River Indian Reservation, which is near Perkins Elementary, have been on lockdown for several months and that there are restrictions on gatherings.

Mortensen said a couple of students at each of his two schools withdrew to pursue home schooling. And about 45 students at Moapa Valley High and about 20 at Perkins Elementary are in cohort C, which is fully distance education.

Mortensen said Moapa Valley High and Perkins Elementary are working on compiling attendance data from the first week of school.

He said he’s hearing informally that teachers are having contact with all of their students, adding that he knows that 100 percent of students are being reached at Perkins.

Precautions taken

In an Aug. 20 letter posted on the school’s website, Perkins Elementary Assistant Principal Kelby Robison wrote that students can’t be dropped off prior to 8:50 a.m. and that once they arrive, they will go straight to their classroom.

“We ask that everyone practice social distancing when dropping off and picking up their students,” Robison wrote.

Perkins Elementary encourages parent involvement, so it’s tough that parents can’t go inside the school building, Wolfley said.

“I can’t imagine being a kindergarten parent right now,” she said.

A video on the Perkins Elementary website gives students and parents a rundown on what to expect during in-person classes. A narrator says new rules are in place to keep everyone safe and school may look a little different this year, but it will be “just as great as always.”

Four school buses are running to Perkins this school year and will unload one at a time, according to the video. Students must practice social distancing as they walk to the multipurpose room to pick up breakfast or head to their classroom.

Preschool and kindergarten parents are allowed to walk with their children to an outdoor gate that’s near their classrooms. Parents of most students in first through fifth grades drop off their children at the curb, according to the video.

Instead of having students go to different rooms for special classes, such as music and art, teachers of those subjects are coming into their classroom instead.

When students go outside to play during a “brain break,” employees use that time to clean tables, door handles and other commonly touched surfaces, Mortensen said. That happens multiple times a day. And only one or two classes are outside at any given time.

Perkins Elementary and Moapa Valley High aren’t doing temperature checks, but parents are asked to take their child’s temperature at home.

Moapa Valley High has one-way traffic flow in all of its hallways. Mortensen said the hallways have seemed sparsely populated on opening week, though, since only half of the student body, 240 to 250 students, is on campus any given day.

“Our school size is similar to a middle school in Las Vegas,” he said.

And those schools typically have 1,200 to 1,800 students when fully occupied.

Students are traveling to different classrooms for their various classes. The high school has implemented 10-minute passing periods, time that employees use to do a quick cleaning of classrooms.

In an effort to alleviate overcrowding, students aren’t allowed to use the restroom during that time and must electronically sign out during class time to go to the restroom.

The school is thoroughly cleaned at the end of each school day. Wednesdays are set aside for deep cleaning when no students are in the building.

“The school is as clean as it has ever been,” Mortensen said.

The school district has given Moapa Valley schools a protocol for how to handle any COVID-19 cases that may arise, Mortensen said.

“There’s a checklist we have to go through,” he said.

Students who show any sign of COVID-19, such as stomach issues or a fever, are taken to an isolation room at school and parents are called. The student has to remain out of school for a number of days, Mortensen said.

He said schools have taken steps to try to limit where each child goes inside the school building so that if there’s a COVID-19 case, it won’t necessarily affect the whole school.

Parent Annalyn James said that with lower COVID-19 infection rates in Moapa Valley, she feels comfortable having children back in school in person.

She said it would be nice to have a normal full-time class schedule next semester, especially for high school seniors.

“I guess that’s everyone’s wish,” James said.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.