‘He wants to go to school;’ family details remote learning during gas outage

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Three days of remote learning have passed for students who attend Mary C. Snow Elementary on Charleston’s West Side.

Monday, the school closed due to the outage. Wednesday, gas service was restored to the building.

Officials with Kanawha County Schools said they will know by noon Thursday if students can return to in-person learning Friday.

In the meantime, the school has offered lunches each day since the school closed, as well as other materials to help keep families warm.

The parents of Legend West, a student in Pre-K at the school, said they were not affected by the natural gas outage but remote learning has been hard for their 4-year-old.

“He loves school, he wakes up before us for school and he wakes up before us for school,” Ray Lewis, Legend’s father said. “He’s complaining this morning about how he wants to school and how he misses his teacher and classmates.”

“He doesn’t want to be home with us anymore,” Tammy Belcher, Legend’s mom said.

“He wants to go to school and learn with the other kids and his teacher.”

Mary C. Snow Principal Tammy Spencer said the feeling is mutual.

“Mostly the challenge for us right now is just not having the kids here, we are thinking about them, I know that they have to, they are struggling right,” she said. “That’s really hard, especially during the holiday season.”

Belcher said until normalcy is restored learning-wise, she’s helping family members who are without heat.

“I’ve watched the kids, I have my niece and nephew [Wednesday]. [Tuesday]. I had my niece, nephew and my little cousin, so that was kind of hard to help them stay warm for a while, give everybody else a break,” she said. “Other than that, it’s fun but I need to cook more food!”

Lunches for students will be available for pickup from 10:30 am to noon Thursday.

The school was already scheduled for closure next week for Thanksgiving Break.

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