On Monday, August 9th, the Garretson School Board met and outlined its plan for the upcoming school year, which included a mask recommendation rather than the mandate that was in place in 2020-21.
After the board convened and approved the agenda, the board did have questions and discussed a few items on their consent agenda. The item discussed in greater detail was the passage of the agreement with SDSU for the placement and support of student teachers. The board members questioned the Superintendent about this measure, wondering if there is a separate contract for all the universities in the state.
Supt. Johnson responded that yes, all the universities in the state have sent us student teachers, but that only SDSU requires an annual contract. The other item discussed was a lane change in pay scale for three district employees as they received more accreditations over the summer. A new annual salary legal notice will be published to reflect those changes (see page 7).
The budget for next year was also discussed under old business. Business manager Jacob Schweitzer corrected a budgetary line item error in the 3-year budget comparison section, but other than that there were not changes to the budget as proposed for Fiscal Year 2022. The budget will be formally adopted at the board’s next meeting.
The board then briefly discussed and voted to supplement the preschool program out of the general fund. The preschool program usually runs in the red for the district, despite tuitions and some federal funding. The good news is that perhaps in the 2023 budget, the costs of operating the program might be paid for completely with federal funding.
Next the board tackled new business. The board discussed their special education plan for the upcoming year and approved it.
The school is required to adopt and submit a Covid-19 action plan as required by the Department of Health and Department of Education. As part of that, they spoke about their action plan in open session.
The starting plan for 2021-22 is face to face learning and no online study options. Masks will not be required, but strongly encouraged at this point in time. Covid-19 vaccines are likewise not required, but strongly encouraged.
“Let me be clear, anyone who hasn’t had a vaccine should be wearing a mask, I can’t advocate that strongly enough,” said Supt. Guy Johnson.
This plan includes three different levels of virus transmission, beginning with green, which is low- to- no transmission. This stage is basically business as usual, and is where the board and administration feel that Garretson is right now.
It’s their hope that’s where the district will stay. However, the South Dakota Department of Health website placed a notice stating that during the week of July 25-31, cases were up 68% from the previous week.
The second level, yellow, is where there is some viral transmission. At that point the school will “very strongly recommend that all staff and students mask.”
Level red is when they start to see high transmission rates among students. When the school reaches that point, they will require masks for all staff and students.
This plan also reserves the right to adapt to changing conditions.
“There is a lot of concern right now about the Delta variant of the Coronavirus,” said Supt. Johnson. “People have every right to be concerned, and we’re going to be watching it closely. There are a lot of parents and concerned people who are going to look at this plan and say that it doesn’t go nearly far enough, that we should continue to require masks. However, people are tired of masking, and the feedback we’ve been getting from parents leads me to believe that if we required masks, some families would choose to open enroll their students out of the district.”
“We’ve had a whole summer without masks, and people are sick of them,” said Board President Shannon Nordstrom. “The virus traditionally appears not to be as virulent in children, so the odds are in our favor. I hate to say those words, especially when we’re talking about people’s lives and protecting our children, but I just don’t think the citizens of our district will stand for it if we put in a mask mandate in force now.”
“Only one school that I know about in all of South Dakota is requiring masks at the start of this school year, and nobody in our area is even considering it,” said Supt. Johnson. He also noted that most of the school staff has been vaccinated.
New board member Jodi Linneweber, noted that many of the Delta variant infections she’s seen in South Dakota have been either unvaccinated or people who have been vaccinated, but who fall into the immunocompromised category, and noted that those who have been vaccinated tend to recover more quickly.
In April, Governor Kristi Noem signed an executive order prohibiting public schools and other government entities from requesting proof of COVID vaccinations, which extends to schools, despite required vaccinations for other diseases in order to enter kindergarten, 6th grade, and college.
New board member Ryan Longhenry noted that versatility is something the board needs to emphasize about this plan. Right now, he said, things are all right, but if there is a problem a mask mandate and any other mitigation measures the board feels are necessary can be implemented right away.
The old adage is to "plan for the worst and hope for the best." One can only hope that Garretson won’t have to deal with another crisis this year.
For policy review, Supt. Johnson only had informational items. With the passage of Medical cannabis legislation and the recreational marijuana legislation, alcohol & drug use policies, and alcohol, drug and controlled substances policies will all need to come under review. Supt. Johnson said he would cover that in his Supt. report to the board later in the meeting. The board had no first readings of revised policies to review, only a second reading revised expense reimbursement policy, cash management and allowable costs for federal program policy updates, all of which was approved.
Next was a new item added to the agenda at the beginning of a meeting, the ERP Esser Plan. This item essentially is Covid-19 relief money.
South Dakota, like all other states in the Union, has gotten money to help in the process of recovering and mitigating any education loss that occurred because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Funding allocation for this program is arbitrary, using not recently completed census data, but old census data from 10 years ago and outdated student information.
Supt. Johnson said it doesn’t at all reflect what our district looks like now and that the Garretson School district more or less got the short end of the stick. Due to the parameters, the school will be granted $147,000, which is toward the lower end compared to other districts in the state.
Though the amount of funding allocation is arbitrary and pedantic, it is money the district can and is going to utilize. The district has hired two teachers, one general title teacher and a math specialist, using these funds. These teachers' sole purpose will be to help students who’ve been struggling with learning loss because of the pandemic. The State Education Department has said that this plan is a slam dunk for approval at the state level. Supt. Johnson said he has every confidence this plan for the district will be approved.
After this, the board moved on to the Superintendent’s report. First, Supt. Johnson talked about medical cannabis. He made clear that since it will be the law of the land, the school can’t deny the use of the drug for medical needs. Many regulations will need to be set in the various counties, cities and townships. School policies and practices will need to be written and enacted. The school will need to decided what kind of cannabis cards the district administration will recognize, though it will likely have to be cards issued by the Department of Health. He commented that South Dakota has a long way to go in the regulatory process, but the board should be thinking of what policies the medical cannabis legalization impacts.
Next, he confirmed the upcoming board training session that took place on Wed. August 18. This is an education program for new and old board members alike on general boardsmanship with updates on any and all new legislative responsibilities. This will be an educational meeting provided by the Associated School Boards.
Supt. Johnson then gave an update on the on the new homeschooling laws. In short, he gave his opinion that these new laws stink to high heaven. He’s not alone in that, as educators and organizations across the state have decried these new laws as a way to let your kids drop out of school, but still get to play sports.
“This is not to say I don’t support people who homeschool,” Johnson said. “There are some parents who do an incredible job homeschooling. But under these new laws, there is almost nothing in the way of oversight or verification that these kids are actually doing the work they need to be doing. I don’t foresee this being a problem in our district, but you can bet money that there will be issues all over the state.”
Locally, our district required homeschooled students to attend some local classes to gain eligibility for sports and activities such as band and choir. However, now there are no such requirements.
The last part of Supt. Johnson’s report was that soon, students would be back in school and he and the staff were looking forward to it. He was extremely complementary about the janitorial staff and how they pulled together to get a massive amount of deep cleaning and floor waxing done before the start of school.
The final item before the meeting adjourned was a request for a school board member to be on the Prairie Lakes Co-Op as a board representative, now that Ruth Sarar has retired from the board. Rachel Hanisch volunteered.
