Thursday, January 15, 2015
Huntington edges Cabell Midland, Page 9 50 Cents Volume 117 Issue 2
Flu surges in Cabell By Amanda Smythers amanda@theputnamstandard.com
Low vaccine effectiveness and tough weather conditions are leading to a widespread influenza breakout across the United States, which the Centers for Disease Control designated an epidemic after 16 children died nationwide. The epidemic affected West Virginia with the number of reported cases increasing since mid-December, according to the state Bureau for Public Heath. “Currently we are seeing widespread activity across West Virginia,” said Shannon McBee, influenza coordinator for the Bureau of Public Health. “Over the last few weeks we have seen significant increases. We are starting to get reports from hospitals this week that they are starting to see a surge of patients in emergency departments.” A big problem this year is a mismatched flu vaccine, which Dr. Rahul Gupta, W.Va. Health Officer and commissioner for the Bureau of Public Health, said is the result of scientists only being able to take an educated guess at what the most popular strains will be. “What happens is months before, sometimes a year before, the process of developing the vaccine for the next flu season begins,” Gupta said. “This process is typically very advanced in nature and there are seasons every few years that we can have some mismatch. “The virus itself does have the tendency to change its receptors to the antibodies. Unfortunately when that happens, we tend to have bad seasons and that’s the situSee Flu, Page 3
The Culloden Elementary construction is 45 percent complete, said Assistant Superintendent James Colegrove at the board meeting. The estimated date of completion is Jan. 22, 2016.
Course registration moves online By Amanda Smythers amanda@theputnamstandard.com
Cabell County High Schools will be switching to online course registration, a process that will start before students register for fall classes. The county’s 2015-2016 High School Course Guide is already online. Students and parents can read about career-centered academies, core requirements and grading procedures, as well as find more information on how to be successful in classes and how
to take advantage of dual enrollment programs for college credit. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jeff Smith said having the course guide online allows for more detailed information, including a full parent handbook for coaching students to success and multiple sample schedules for parents and students to peruse. “Ultimately, it is our goal for every student to be college or career ready by graduation,” he said after the Jan. 7 Board of Education meeting. “The online handbook puts the information
they need in a readily available and robust format. We hope students will register their course requests in consultation with their parents at home, then get a final review in consultation with their school counselor.” Smith said this is important as it will allow students to take full advantage of programs such as dual enrollment, where students can earn college credit for the class they are taking in high school. See School, Page 8
Rationale for decisions regarding school closings, delays The following is a letter from standing that Cabell Schools Superintendent every instance William Smith to parents. has its own nuance that will Dear Parents, impact what we do, I’ll just [On Jan. 8] many of you had address the sitquestions regarding our decision uation Thursto keep schools open despite very day – that will cold temperatures. I do appreciate give you some your concerns and think your ques- insight into Smith tions are valid. I want to share with our particular you some of the considerations the point of view. staff and I make when deciding There are several factors we to close or delay school. Under- consider before closing or delaying
school. There are more than 13,000 students in our district coming from a variety of household situations that can be negatively impacted by last minute school delays or closures; so we take a serious look at several factors before making such a call. Thursday morning, for example, these specific factors were in play: • The cold temperature condition was expected to be the same at 6 a.m. as it would at 8 a.m. – a 2-hour delay would not have made much impact.
• When we as a district decide on a two-hour delay, most of our parents cannot alter their work schedules and either have to leave their children at home alone or scramble to find alternate childcare until school is open. Most households today have working parents who will lose pay or even their jobs for being late or absent without cause (some businesses do not recognize childcare as a good reason to miss work). In these cases, the options of making sure children are properly
dressed, and/or taking them to the bus stop or school in a warm car two hours later than normal are no longer possible. We estimate this is true for more than 5,500 of our households (conservatively). Also, leaving young children home alone for 2 hours or all day is not a good idea for a whole lot of reasons. * All of our building HVAC systems are capable of being controlled remotely, therefore we know at any hour if a heating See Closings, Page 8
INSIDE THIS EDITION: n
Commission seeks solutions, page 3 n Jobs are critical, page 4