By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The Caverna Independent School Board of Education, with its five board members and Superintendent Amanda Abell, met at the district’s central office to get a review of Caverna’s virtual educational program and to review the 2024-2025 academic calendar.
At the beginning of the monthly meeting, Abell introduced first-year instructor Brett Reliford to present to the members an overview of the school’s new virtual program. Abell said the program initially began out of a hardship to find qualified mathematics and science instructors and grew from there.
“When we weren’t able to hire a science teacher this year we decided to change that position into a virtual coordinator,” Abell said. “We have seen amazing success with this.”
Currently, Reliford said during the presentation, the program has roughly 178 students — that total represents both middle and high school students — and offers 65 unique courses.
Reliford and Abell agreed that the virtual option helps both those students who choose to go the homeschool route, the students who lose a whole class period due to travel time because of being involved in the Early College Program at WKU Glasgow or trade school.
“That’s a whole class period,” Abell said. “So we give them [the class they missed] virtually so they have six classes instead of seven, but they aren’t losing instruction.”
In addition to that, the school also uses the virtual option as an avenue for credit recovery instead of “cramming” it all in during summer school.
Reliford informed the board members the virtual program has roughly a 95 percent rate in credit recovery and keeps students from falling behind.
“We’re seeing so many benefits that we’ve seen from this,” Abell said. “Plus you have kids who say that for some reason they want to go to homeschool we can go and say ‘here’s another option where you can still get a Caverna diploma.’”
“Our [school-wide] enrollment is up to 660 now. We got two new virtual students today because they want a Caverna diploma. It has been very worthwhile. It’s helped us offer flexibility to our families,” she added.
After Reliford’s presentation the board members turned their attention to the 2024-2025 academic calendar. As previously reported, Caverna sought public input on the next year’s calendar providing them three options.
Option A had the school year beginning Aug. 14 and ending May 21 for students, option B had school beginning Aug. 20 and ending on May 28 whereas option C had the latest student start date of Aug. 27 with the last day scheduled for May 29. All three options have additional days on the end for possible make up days should the district be closed.
Allison Dennison, the board member on the calendar committee, said they had chosen to opt for Option A. Although, Dennison said that tourism preferred Option C, which had the latest start date, they chose A and its 173 instruction days because it aligned most closely with Barren County Schools academic calendar, which is necessary due to ATC students.
With a unanimous vote the board approved the calendar.
The next Caverna Independent School Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Mar. 14.
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