This week marks the first week back to full-time in-seat learning for Marshall High School students since the fire in November 2021. Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is without a doubt Marshall Public Schools’ administrative teams, teachers and particularly high school students and their parents/guardians have had to navigate through unique obstacles during the 2021-22 school year.

According to Superintendent Dr. Carol Maher, with in-seat instruction beginning this week, some clarification from the school to parents needed to be made in regards to MHS’s plan.

Dr. Maher says per the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s input in early January, total remote or hybrid learning were no longer an option for the school district. Since then, school officials announced to provide in-person instruction to all students, four locations were needed to proceed. The decision was made to house students at the Martin Center, the Saline County Fairgrounds, the Saline County Career Center and Marshall High School – in areas not affected by the fire.

Dr. Maher says, “If the fire had happened in an elementary school, the organization and lesson delivery would have been much less complicated and probably more understandable. For example, third grade students could be with third grade teachers. In the situation of a high school, however, where multiple ages are assigned to multiple teachers throughout the day, instruction is much more complicated.”

She further clarified:

• Students were divided in grade levels at the four locations and teachers were assigned to the location that had the students who were most dependent on particular teachers. There are teachers who teach three to four grade levels, and traveling arrangements have been made with some of those teachers.
• MHS does not have a sufficient number of buses to transport all students from location to location during the day to be taught by their regular teacher(s).
• Edmentum was chosen as the instructional platform to allow students in all locations to participate in the individual courses in which they are enrolled. The decision was made to move away from Acellus, as the district found it was more suitable to credit recovery and not as rigorous as our standards demand.

Dr. Maher also urges students and/or parents to advocate for themselves by discussing any challenges or hardships they encounter with a teacher, counselor or administrator.

MHS students and teachers are scheduled to return the high school on Tuesday, March 22 – the day after spring break.