Page 5 - Mid Valley Times 6-25-20 E-edition

Thursday, June 25, 2020
The View From Here
I looked
over the as-
sortment of
face masks
that John
Campbell,
superinten-
dent for the
Kings Can-
yon Unified
School Dis-
trict, had
laid out in his office. “My wife makes these,” he said. “Would you like one?”
“Sure!” I replied. “Thank you so much.”
After we joked about a Sanger High Apace-themed mask and how he most cer- tainly did not have one of those, I decided on an Or- ange Cove Titan-themed mask and was on my way.
I went to visit Campbell and talk to him about the districts latest announce- ment to reintroduce stu- dents back into the class- rooms following the COV- ID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic that led to the shelter in place order that kept students from re- turning to school following spring break.
Now that restrictions have eased a bit, schools throughout California are looking at ways to have stu- dents return to traditional "in classroom" learning and follow all health guidelines in the process.
Campbell said the first thing they did was their re- search. I was surprised at how much time and “out of the box” thinking these ad- ministrators did to ensure their plan would be execut- ed with effectiveness and ease.
The initial plan was to bring as many students back all the while shrink- ing class sizes to meet the social distancing rules and keep students safe.
“The problem is that in order to spread people out you have to have the facili- ties to spread them out,” he said. “So we couldn’t really bring all our kids unless we had double the amount of schools that we did.”
“We have enough space to hold an entire grade of where everyone comes out,” he continued.
Next on the agenda was how to rearrange certain rooms on a variety of cam- puses to make room for the new outline.
“We walked the facili- ties, looked at everything, closed a couple of faculty lounges closed a couple of after school rooms and thought yea we can do it, so now we’re up to 27 new classrooms in the district,” he said.
SEE COLUMN on page A6
By Juanita Adame
Mid Valley Times
Officials with the Kings Canyon Unified School Dis- trict have been working on it for months; a plan to reintro- duce students back into the classroom following the stay at home order that began on March 19 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re going to bring kids back at every school site,” said John Campbell, KCUSD su- perintendent on the afternoon ofJune18. “Reallysmallclass sizes, teachers who want to work and students who want to volunteer.”
It was back on March 19, 2020, that an executive or- der and public health order directed all Californians to stay home except those who worked in essential jobs or on- ly to shop for essential needs.
Schools were ordered to close and students turned to virtual learning as an alterna- tive.
Juanita Adame
KCUSD outlines plan for students return to school
Contributed
ABOVE: A time before COVID-19. A photo showed students in a classroom. The district recently an- nounced plans to have students return to schools with a number of health restrictions in place.
In recent weeks, the stay at home orders have been re- laxed allowing restaurants, gyms, and schools to reopen as long as health guidelines were being followed.
“We’ve taken all that and we’ve put it together,” he said. “Here are the param- eters, here are the restraints
how can we get the most out of what they’re allowing?”
Campbell said that their live instruction and reintro- ducing students to classes will begin on July 6 with their summer class sessions. He said a lot of time, research, and effort by his faculty and staff went into making the re-
turn to school possible.
“A lot of school districts
are going 50/50, but we decid- ed to go a lot deeper than that and asked what could we pos- sibly do,” he said. “We’ve tak- en the social distancing guide- lines with the CDE and the CDC, the governors office and
See KCUSD on page A6
Dinuba Police Department fills two positions
Young conservatives honored
Mid Valley Times
The City of Dinuba Po- lice Department welcomed Andrew Loera, who was pro- moted to a full-time officer in May. Loera was hired as a reserve officer in January and recently completed field training in early May.
Loera is a graduate of Or- ange Cove High School and attended Fresno State, grad- uating with a bachelor’s de- gree in criminology in 2018. Loera previously worked as a level 2 reserve deputy for the
Fresno County Sheriff’s De- partment and a police officer for the city of Porterville.
The department also filled an open vacancy announc- ing Sam Hara as a full-time Evidence Technician. Hara worked for the City of Di- nuba for the last nine years as a part-time animal control officer.
In other department news, Mark Wilder retired after 13 years of service as a full-time police officer. Officer Wild- er’s last day was May 27.
Contributed
The Kings River Conser- vatives honored their young members at the June meet- ing.
Honorees were Claire Domm, a student at California State University Fresno and Republican field organizer. Matt Gee, a student at Clovis Community, and Republican volunteer coordinator was also recognized.
Domm and Gee have been active in elections and politics since 2017.
Also honored were Matt Casarez and Angel Rodriguez for being instrumental in starting a "Constitution Club" at Reedley High School. Top- ics of discussion included po- litical issues of the day, one of them being the new and im- proved Recall Campaign of Gavin Newsom.
'On the map' where in Reedley was this photo taken?
Contributed
From left, Claire Domm and Matt Gee.
If you would like more in- formation on the local recall effort please text 559-786- 9366.
Juanita Adame / Mid Valley Times
Some unique windows add character to this corner stone restau- rant in downtown Reedley, but can you guess the location? Answer in next week's Mid Valley Times. Last week's photo featured the streams of Annadale.
Contributed
Photo of the week
A photo of Campbell Mountain with the "R" representing Reedley taken at dawn was sent in by Maria G. Pineda. Have a photo you'd like featured? Email juanita@midvalleypublishing.com.