News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Since March, school districts have created plans to guide faculty and students through the unknown. Now districts are planning out inevitable situations students and faculty will be facing as school resumes.
Overton County Director of Schools Mark Winningham said it’s important to be as proactive as possible when situations will arise.
“As an administrative staff over the whole district we’ve sat down and tried to plan out ‘okay, what if this were to happen’ or ‘what if that were to happen,'” Winningham said. “I mean, we’re just trying to do things or make plans for things that we just don’t know what may happen.”
Winningham said communication will be critically important to deal with issues that will crop up as the school year progresses. A common fear among faculty, students, and parents are how many cases will it take before schools will shut down again. He said there’s not way to tell.
“I think you just have to consider what is the potential for an outbreak at your school or in a classroom or whatever,” Winningham said. “I don’t know if there is a magic number for that.”
Plans and scenarios are constantly being discussed between school district members, Winningham said.
“The one thing that you don’t want to be is caught by surprise by something that should have come to you pretty rapidly after the fact,” Winningham said. “So [communication] is really important.”
