CINCINNATI — On Thursday, July 16, WCPO aired a town hall special featuring educational leaders from several schools to discuss back-to-school procedures and plans for the fall semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The special aired from 7:30 to 8 p.m. on television, with a digital, audience-focused special continuing on our streaming platforms from 8 to 8:30 p.m.
Watch the WCPO special in the player below:
Participating in the town hall will be:
- Matt Miller, superintendent of Lakota Public Schools in West Chester
- Dr. Henry Webb, superintendent of Kenton County Public Schools in Northern Kentucky
- Dr. Paul Ketcham, superintendent of Batesville, Indiana, schools
- Julie Sellers, president of the Cincinnati Teachers Union
For the first half of the town hall, the superintendents, moderated by Tanya O'Rourke, will discuss several topics of concern associated with plans to return to school in the fall as COVID-19 cases continue to rise.
The topics to be discussed are tentatively slated to be:
- Curriculum vs. safety
- How do you temperature check everybody coming into the building?
- How do you keep masks on kids all day?
- Digital inequality
- Busing
- Statewide testing for graduation/grade promotion
- Truancy
- Academy of Pediatrics says kids should be in school. Why?
- Can students catch up on learning? Students learning last year's lessons.
The second half, available only on WCPO's website, app and streaming platforms like Roku, will focus specifically on audience-submitted questions for school officials. WCPO is looking for audience questions related to the topic. Viewers can submit those questions by emailing newsdesk@wcpo.com, or by posting them in the comments to this article on Facebook and Twitter.
