Page 1 - Mid Valley Times 3-26-20 E-edition

Thursday, March 26, 2020
Vol. 1, No. 39
A new normal — for now
Signs covering seats at Sanger City Hall stated that the seats were unavailable for the public in order to practice social distancing at the Sanger City Council meeting on March 19.
Packing a punch with free lunch in Dinuba
By George M. Villagrana
Mid Valley Times
With schools at Dinuba Unified and neighboring school districts closed, one vital piece of the school day continued: a free lunch com- bined with a free breakfast.
Vehicles steadily streamed into the Dinuba High north parking lot the afternoon of March 20 as a trio of volun- teers were ready with a lunch and breakfast.
Roosevelt Elementary School Principal Elizabeth Gonzalez said it was great to see everyone come together to serve.
“It’s awesome to see all our schools band together,”
she said. “To provide these opportunities for people to drive up to pick up lunches, it’s amazing how many thank yous we’ve gotten from the public. It felt really good to be able to serve our community like this.”
DUSD has three locations where students can pick up a free lunch and breakfast through April 3. Gonzalez said she had teachers reach out to her in high-volume wanting to help but with Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest mandate the day before, she could only have four volunteers.
“We would’ve had a lot more teachers here. I had
See FREELUNCHESonpageA10
Volunteers pre- pared to hand out meals at the Di- nuba High School parking lot on March 20. Dinuba Unified School District has three locations where students can pick up a free breakfast and free lunch through Friday, April 3.
George M. Villagrana / Mid Valley Times
Rick Curiel / Mid Valley Times
Social distancing
practices lead to
small crowd at
Sanger council
By Rick Curiel
Mid Valley Times
It was an almost eerie site at the March 19 Sanger City Council meeting as the audi- ence seating area, usually at least half full, was left vir- tually deserted. Taking pre- cautions, the city of Sanger eliminated certain seating in an effort to social distance, leaving a total of 19 available seats.
There were seven people in the audience, including two members of the press and two
See COUNCILonpageA10
50 cents
KCUSD
extends
home
learning
to May 1
MVT Staff Report
The Kings Canyon Unified School District announced the evening of March 24 that all its schools will continue home-based/online learning through Friday, May 1.
The announcement came in a news release, and par- ents were notified the eve- ning of March 24 about the extended closure of campus- es for instruction.
Students initially were to return to campus for classes on Tuesday, April 14. But dis- trict administrators and the KCUSD board agreed to ex- tend the period at the guid- ance of local health officials and in collaboration with neighboring school districts.
In the news release, the district said it hopes to re- open schools to students on Monday, May 4. In the in- terim, all services currently being on campus — including meals and social-emotion- al support — will continue through Friday, May 1.
Those services will tem- porarily be stopped and the campus closed dur- ing KCUSD's regularly- scheduled spring vacation break from Monday, April 6, through Monday, April 13.
More information on the latest KCUSD action is avail- able on the district website: kcusd.com.
Dealing with Coronavirus
Reedley College shifts to full online instruction schedule
Jon Earnest / Mid Valley Times
Jerry Buckley, Reedley College president, stood in a deserted plaza area of the campus on March 20. The college has converted to complete online instruction last week because of the ongoing COVID-19 situation.
By Jon Earnest
Mid Valley Times
The worldwide coronavirus crisis caused Reedley College to go from a full- service community college to a fully on- line entity within the course of a week for its 13,000 full- and part-time students. It was a sudden and rugged challenge that college officials met head on.
And while it meant some painful deci- sions — a primary one being the cancel- lation of the 2020 on-campus commence- ment ceremony in late May — it has re- sulted in the college quickly adjusting to provide students with the basic opportu- nity of continuing their higher education as close to a normal pace as possible.
"Our worst case scenario seems to have hit this week," RC President Jerry Buckley said on March 20. "As [Gov. Gavin Newsom] released his new instruc- tions [March 19] we kind of went into Phase Four of our plan. Which is basical-
ly working from a distance. A hundred percent online course. Now it's basically 1,500 sessions-plus online."
Before the latest developments, Reed- ley College was planning to combine on- line instruction with a limited among of study labs and on-campus programs com- bining students and instructors. But that all quickly changed on March 19 when Newsom announced that the state was entering a "shelter in place" status for residents.
The transition meant obtaining simu- lation instruction programs to cover the college's extensive curriculum. Technical education officials were able to get soft- ware that allows simulating welding and industrial maintenance, programs that Buckley said are among the toughest to simulate.
"I can't say I'm happy about that, be- cause I taught for 15 years and I believe
See REEDLEY COLLEGE on page A8
May commencement ceremony canceled
Classifieds - B3 Directory - B2 Legals - B4-7 Sports - B1, B8 Lifestyle - A5-7 Lights & Sirens - A3 Obituaries - A2-3 Opinion - A4