Tumultuous relationships: School systems and COVID-19

It’s been a week.

We lost a popular school superintendent and then the Floyd County school system announced they would be going to virtual learning for two weeks. On Friday, the school board rolled that back and now only three schools will be going virtual. The rest will be staying open but with mandated facial coverings.

Tumultuous might be the best descriptor of the past few days. But that’s the way it is now and it looks like we’re going to just have to get used to it.

Both the Floyd County School Board and former superintendent have agreed to disagree, and put it in writing. For whatever reason they’ve decided to part ways and agreed to not talk about it.

People have termed it a buyout or hinted at underhanded dealings but the agreement both parties signed is pretty standard.

When a school board brings a superintendent in, there are contracts signed and a provision in many of those contracts (including this one) has wording that if the board should decide to part ways with the superintendent they’ll be duly compensated.

Sometimes, that’s just what happens. We’ve seen it happen before and likely will again.

Right now the schools are trying to figure out the best way to provide the service they give to the community. The elected members of the school boards across the state have weighed in. They’ve taken a variety of measures — mostly without much state guidance.

Warning: We’re about to start beating a familiar drum for a few lines.

If you don’t like what they did, communicate with them. If they don’t listen, go vote when it’s time.

Conversely, if you like what they’re doing, communicate with them and go vote when it’s time.

We publish the contact information for local elected officials regularly in the Roman Record for that reason. We like to think of it as a public service. So use it.

But please as we all muddle through trying to figure out how best to deal with life in the pandemic, let’s remember to have a measure of grace and understanding.

On that note, we’d like to acknowledge we’re not immune to the dull and repetitive side of hearing about COVID-19.

But it is the nature of our profession to seek out that information for those who are unable to. Not everyone in this community has a smartphone or computer to quickly access important information.

Many people still rely on us to get them the vital information they need to keep themselves and their families safe and we take that responsibility very seriously.

We want many of the same things you want. We want positive and uplifting stories. We want to know about people who inspire and do good things. We want to know about sports scores and club activities, business transactions and entertainment events.

We don’t have an agenda to push. But we MUST report on the things that are affecting our community and unfortunately right now the pandemic is affecting our community more than anything else.

If you think you’re tired of COVID-19, imagine calling and writing about it every day since early March. As tiring as it can be for everyone involved — we’re going to keep doing it.

As a newspaper we’ve been accused of promoting an agenda and we’d like to be open and clear about what our agenda truly is. Here it goes: many if not most of our readers belong to a population that’s especially vulnerable to this pandemic. So, we’re going to do the footwork and try and let you know how things are going with the pandemic locally and regionally.

Thanks for reading.