Education Spotlight: What events are ahead for the Merced County Office of Education

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- In ABC30's segment, Education Spotlight, Action News Anchor Landon Burke will talk with Merced County Office of Education (MCOE) officials about some of the biggest topics in education.

Though many students are getting ready for a week off school, faculty and staff at Merced County Office of Education are keeping busy.

Landon Burke got an early look at what's to come in December and beyond.

Landon: Stacie, I hear we got a number of big events on the docket. Could you tell me a little bit about them?

Stacie: We do. We're very excited, Landon. Student events are coming back in person. So starting in December, we've got our Spelling Bee coming up. We're looking forward to welcoming actually more than 100 students who are going to be back for our two different Bee's split up in different days. And unfortunately, we're not going to be able to have spectators come to their families won't be able to be here in person. But we have a great team that's putting together a live stream, and so we're excited to have the student is here and have these events in-person to share and also have the family still be able to participate.

Landon: So this past year, you know, we've said in previous conversations you guys had to do just about everything virtual you had to really reinvent the wheel. Can you tell me a little bit about how you guys went about that?

Stacie: Yeah, so we talked with a lot of other coordinators in different counties. I have a great team of, you know, friends from other areas that I've met over my years doing events, and we've kind of all put our heads together and shared ideas and worked out what would work best for our students in our area. And we've found some software that would work for some we've done a lot of Zoom. And, you know, we made it work, and we were able to still have these events for students, which we thought was really important while students were at home doing virtual learning.

Landon: The events going forward. So you said that you're having this spelling competition for example, you're having students in house, no spectators just yet. Are you guys planning on doing a kind of a phased approach to some of these events? Or do you hope to bring spectators back for some events in the near future?

Stacie: We hope we can bring spectators back. We just right now because we want to bring as many students as we can. We're trying to keep our numbers down. So having the spectators not attend is the first step to keeping the capacity down. But still being able to support the students, as we move into the first of the year and we see how everything's going, we might be able to bring them back for some of our other stuff. We have Academic Decathlon very early on in the new year. We're hoping that you know, for the Super Quiz and big award ceremonies like that we could have some spectators in house.

Landon: So for those you know, parents or relatives that can't make it to the event in person for whatever reason, what's the best way for them to watch?

Stacie: Sure, we have that on our MC OE website. We also have a Facebook, Facebook and YouTube account. So it will be on all of those platforms, and also, we have some TV channels, local TV channels that we can promote that on as well.

Landon: So what's the best way for parents to stay up to date as you know the situation develops and things change?

Stacie: Yeah, we have our website is MCOE.org/student events. And that is a great way to keep up to date with the word list forms, paperwork, locations, and all of that. And of course, someone can always email me and that is events@mcoe.org. And their schools also should have the information if there's something that they're looking for.