While the Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School has not formally dedicated its new building, they are holding classes and are working to get classroom learning started in spite of the new COVID pandemic.
Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School executive director Amanda Johnson said family and teachers reported four cases of COVID since the start of the school year at Monday night’s meeting. She said seven individuals from the school are isolated as some have been exposed to COVID and are waiting for test results.
Steps are being taken to minimize COVID at the school.
“We are basically trying to put in as many precautions as we can in order to keep the spread low,” Johnson said. “We recognize that because it’s here and it’s in our community and it’s in our state that it’s not going to be zero, but we are trying our best to make sure the number stays extremely low like it did last year.”
The decision to mask or not-mask was not an issue at CCPCS.
Johnson said masks are being mandated. Anyone without a mask will be provided one. Contact between scholars is being minimized and they are using their own materials.
Teachers and scholars have worn college shirts to schools in the past. No formal program has been put together with the masks, but some children have taken it upon themselves to wear college masks.
“We definitely have some kids who do wear college masks,” said Johnson. “That would be a cool piece to add to the uniform for sure.”
Johnson said Alcorn State University, Ole Miss and Jackson State University have been some of the most popular colleges for shirts and masks. She added one teacher went to a university on an island in Hawaii that was also represented.
“The kids are learning about lots of different colleges,” Johnson said.
Virtual option
Virtual learning may be an option for children.
“We are offering scholars a virtual option if they have underlying conditions or if they’re just still really concerned and uncomfortable and they don’t want to withdraw from our school,” Johnson said. “They just want for COVID to not be so prevalent and we are offering them a virtual option.”
Johnson said Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School will have a family webinar on Thursday where instructions will be given to sign up for virtual learning. She added she knows from talking to parents that some of them are interested in the virtual learning.
Johnson said current COVID cases will be put on the school’s website soon.
“I think there can be some confusion about when you hear different things that are happening or if somebody gets an email saying there’s a case in the class,” Johnson said. “There’s just a lot of assumptions about how many cases there are. I think the biggest thing is that our numbers will be on our website. We’ll have that by Thursday when we do the parent meeting. We’ll tell our parents about it and let them know that we updated in real time.
“That way I just want our families to know and the community to know that we’re trying to be transparent about our data,” she added. “I don’t think any school in our community or any school at all has anything to gain by keeping their numbers private. I think it’s helpful for people to know so that they can take extra precautions and so that they can make decisions for their families. I just want to make sure that people know we’re fully transparent about our data and it will be there for families and communities to look at.”
Enrollment Numbers
Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School had 443 students enrolled for the 2021-22 year as of Monday night. The enrollment goal is 450.
Johnson said two more students enrolled Tuesday morning increasing the number to 445.
“We do have a long waitlist and we are calling scholars off the waitlist,” Johnson said.
The goal is to have 75 students per grade. As of Monday, there were 74 first graders leaving one spot open. There were 69 third graders leaving six spots open. The fifth grade, however, has 40 children on the waitlist.
“The older grades are a little bit harder to get into,” Johnson said. “Obviously, it’s easier to get into kindergarten because we open up so many spots at kindergarten each year and so it’s easiest to get in at kindergarten. That waitlist is always going to be a little bit smaller because we just accepted 75.”
Finances
Teresa Thornton was recently named the new finance director.
Johnson said the school will have a better idea of how things went for the 2020-21 fiscal year in the near future.
“We are going through our audit season right now and trying to close the books from our last fiscal year so right now it’s just a lot of work to get some things done,” Johnson said.
