Elizabethton City Schools look to keep moving forward in spring semester

Published 3:56 pm Tuesday, January 4, 2022

In their first semester fully back after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elizabethton City Schools underwent many changes and precautions to keep students safe and educated.

“The first semester was extremely successful, especially with all the challenges we had to deal with,” said Director of Elizabethton City Schools Richard VanHuss. “Our staff has been working so hard, trying to catch students up from missed learning opportunities from the past 18 months. And it is not just teachers, it is also all of the teachers assistants, cooks, bus drivers, maintenance staff, and our custodians who have all pulled together to make this year as normal as possible.

“Just being able to be back in school five days a week was great. For some students, that had never happened in their school career, and for those who had started kindergarten the year before the pandemic, they only had about four or five months of what was considered a normal school year,” said VanHuss.

And while last semester was all about transitioning from online back to in-person, VanHuss said exciting things are in the works for the upcoming semester.

“With the new semester, especially in high school, that means a whole new set of classes,” said VanHuss. “This semester is more of just continuing the routine of last semester and pushing that through. Everyone has had a chance to get a little break here around Christmas to help push through.

“Testing is always a big focus for us, so we are looking at doing a lot of online testing in the spring. We did that in the fall, but in smaller numbers, so we are planning to continue that academic progress we made in the first semester. And of course from an extracurricular standpoint, we are in the middle of our winter sports and we are looking forward to seeing those student athletes continue to compete,” said VanHuss.

Construction projects also will get underway this spring.

“We have some other construction projects that we are looking forward to moving on with in the new year. We are planning on doing some remodeling at Harold McCormick, additional parking at East Side Elementary as well as upgrades to the softball field and potentially a hitting facility for the baseball team,” said VanHuss.