Elizabeth A Fuller

Module 3 Writing Assignment

9/21/20

Standard Activity 10.42b – Change Process

The Ever-Evolving School Day

Formal and informal leaders of Cabell County Schools include:

Ryan Saxe - Superintendent

Joedy Cunningham - Director of Secondary Schools

Tim Hardesty - Assistant Superintendent of Support & Employee Relations

Kelly Watts – Assistant Superintendent of Leadership

Jeremy Baisden – Coordinator of Information Systems

Jedd Flowers – Director of Communications

Keith Thomas – Director of Student Support

Heather Scarberry – Director of Special Education

Debbie Smith – Manager of Professional Personnel

David Tackett – Manager of Service Personnel

AFT & WVEA – Unions

Activist Parents that are REALLY MAD – not naming them

The main initiative through the COVID-19 pandemic throughout our county has been the online

learning and blended learning initiatives. At the end of the summer, the parents of HHS were given the

choice of 5-day traditional learning, 3-day blended learning, or complete virtual learning. We, as

counselors, were asked to assist in the changing/making of a new master schedule to include these

three options. We were then asked to gather the data, separate it, and change every students schedule

and tag them according to this choice. This took many man hours for all of us, but we buckled down,

worked together and got this huge task complete. After the levy passed, these choices were narrowed
to blended or virtual learning only. We were then asked to take out the blended classes, change every

schedule back to the original again, and balance them according to alphabet (all while adding all virtual

courses, and changing students’ choices of blended to virtual or vice versa). After that was complete we

became technology masters, and a virtual call center as well as doing our actual job. We completed

these tasks as asked for the good of the students and HHS, but the weary are getting tired here.

Ryan, Joedy, Tim and Kelly receive the information from the “powers that be” aka State

Department and Governor. Jedd Flowers does constant call outs to the parents and staff with vital

information to this ever-changing situation. Jeremy Baisden (best IT guy in the whole state) gets his rear

kicked with phone calls regarding virtual, schoology, everything technological. Debbie Smith and David

Tackett try their best to take care of their employees and get them the information about all resources

for the school employees to use. Keith and Heather both have a hard and important part in this equation

and receive hundreds of calls a day regarding technology, and special education services with virtual.

The AFT and WVEA try to advocate for the teachers and VERY MAD and vocal parents advocate for

teachers and advocate against them depending on the mood of the social media that you read.

So far, Cabell County has been unable to utilize the 5-day in person learning portion of our

initiative; however, it is my biggest hope that one day we will. One positive is that, for the most part,

blended instruction has been working. The technology has been our biggest disadvantage. Not the

actual technology distribution, but the user error is constant. Virtual students still believe (4 weeks into

instruction) that their classes aren’t showing up. This is due to logging into schoology (as we did with

remote learning in the spring) instead of the full-time virtual program. They have also lost usernames

and passwords. We need much more manpower to get this going, but as a school, we have all been

working together as a team with the board of education. It has actually been refreshing, SUPER BUSY,

but refreshing.