Education Briefs: Week of Jan. 6

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Education Briefs

Chatham Grove Ribbon cutting takes place

PITTSBORO — Representatives from both the Chatham County Board of Education and the Chatham County Board of Commissioners gathered Dec. 21 for a ribbon cutting at Chatham Grove Elementary School.

Chatham County Manager Dan LaMontagne, Chatham County Schools Superintendent Dr. Derrick D. Jordan and Chatham Grove Principal Dr. Larry Savage also participated.

Chatham County issued Chatham County Schools the certificate of occupancy for the building on May 8. The ribbon cutting had been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic requiring an unusual amount of attention to navigate normal operations.

“As Chatham County continues to grow, there will be additional opportunities to mark such milestones,” Jordan said. “I am thankful for the collaboration that exists between the Board of Education and Board of Commissioners such that they are able to proactively respond to the needs that will continue to emerge.”

Chatham Grove, located at 1301 Andrews Store Rd., shares space, including a gymnasium, with Chatham County Parks & Recreation. That partnership is an innovative example of the ongoing collaboration between the school system and county government.

“We are very fortunate here in Chatham to have such a positive relationship between the county and school system,” said Chatham County Board of Commissioners Chairperson Mike Dasher. “We look forward to collaborating on future projects as our community continues to grow.”

- Chatham County Schools

Exceptional educators recognized in Chatham

PITTSBORO — An educator as passionate about his work as Melvin Diggs wasn’t about to let a pandemic steal the shine from his staff.

The N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction typically hosts an annual conference focusing on exceptional children (EC), explained Diggs, the executive director of EC and academically or intellectually gifted programs for Chatham County Schools. School districts select an EC educator or related service provider to receive recognition at that conference, which usually is in Greensboro. COVID-19 cut in on that date, limiting the conference to a virtual format, which meant no nice dinner and other perks of acknowledgement for the honorees.

“Unfortunately, those opportunities were not available this year,” Diggs said.

So Diggs did what he does — he innovated, gathering his leadership team, who put a local twist on what’s done at the state level and recognized both Becky Bouldin and Beth Speas for jobs well done.

Speas is an occupational therapist for the school system. Bouldin is an EC educator at Virginia Cross Elementary School.“Since we were recognizing our teachers locally, and we were not forced to only select one district representative, we chose to honor them both as CCS Co-Educators of Excellence,” Diggs said.

- Chatham County Schools

Chatham Charter: info for fully remote instruction

In complying with state COVID pandemic educational requirements during the 2020-2021 school year, Chatham Charter School will accept requests from families for students to remain in a fully remote learning environment through the second semester, which ends on Tuesday, May 18.

It should be noted that unlike school districts with multiple schools and many teachers in the same grade levels/subjects, Chatham Charter has a small faculty and cannot support a virtual academy. The school will offer the most feasible plan for remote instruction within this limitation.

The remote instruction request form must be submitted to the elementary contact (Jennifer McGaughnea, jmcgaughnea@chathamcharter.org) or to the middle/high school contact (Cathy Fields, cgfields@chathamcharter.org) depending on the grade level of the student requesting continued remote instruction. The deadline to have made the request was Jan. 6. Families with multiple children need to submit a separate form for each student. Once a family makes a request for remote instruction this semester, the decision is final. Moving back and forth between in-person and remote instruction will not be permitted. Families who made requests for fully remote instruction in the fall semester need only to email the appropriate school contact(s) to request their student(s) remain(s) in remote instruction for the spring semester. Those who submitted fall forms do not need to submit new forms.

More information, as well as the remote instruction request form, can be found at Chatham Charter’s website.

- Chatham Charter School