Weed Elementary welcomes students back to classrooms

Smoke from wildfires across the state moved away from the Mt. Shasta area and allowed Weed Elementary School to reopen Monday for full in-person instruction.

“Today has been an awesome day,” said the school’s new superintendent/principal Jon Ray. “The staff is incredibly excited and the kids are ecstatic to be back.”

Although WES was scheduled to begin last week, poor air quality forced the school to postpone its first day. COVID-19 safety precautions ask schools to keep windows and doors open as much as possible for ventilation. However, smoke in the air made that impossible last week.

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While the Mount Shasta Elementary, Sisson School, Butteville Elementary and Dunsmuir Elementary school boards opted to concentrate on building their distance learning models to begin the year, “What the community of Weed wants and needs is to have children in school,” said Ray last month. “Being open is critical.” 

He added that WES, which has an enrollment of about 290 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, is offering an online learning option for families who don’t yet feel comfortable with face-to-face learning.

McCloud Elementary School, which has a small enough student population to make COVID-19 guidelines easier to adhere to, also began their school year in-person last week.