Garretson School board report, keeping school open despite difficulties (Preview)

by Garrick Moritz, Gazette

The Garretson School Board met in regular session on Oct. 12, 2020. Main topics of the meeting were COVID-19 and its effects on the district, new educational tools to track students’ academic progress, free meals for all school age children in the district, the school losing out on potential refinancing money because of social media, and a long discussion on policy revisions.

Several financial reports from the business manager were added to the consent agenda starting off.

Supt. Guy Johnson reported that the COVID-19 relief funds had been deposited in the school’s account and would be used as proscribed by law to defer costs incurred by the Coronavirus pandemic. He commented that the school had a great number of extra expenses this year because of the pandemic and that although the district would have appreciated the money sooner, they were grateful that it had been received.

The board revised the certified and classified staff reports, and all those salaries would be published as required by law in the school’s official newspaper.

The board briefly discussed whether or not to host a board retreat this year. Normally they host a board retreat every 2 years and one was held last year, but they still pondered whether or not they should host it this year either because of COVID-19 complications or if they should forgo because of said virus. They agreed to not host a board retreat this year.

Then, board President Shannon Nordstrom asked the board to debate who should be the board’s delegate to the Associated School Boards of South Dakota this year, and the board renewed Nordstrom’s seat in that position as their delegate.

Next the board reviewed policy changes and updates. Ruth Sarar had several corrections and Rachel Hanisch had several clarification recommendations. There was enough debate and discussion on these issues that the board decided not vote on any second readings on policy, but rather sent them back for committee review and revisal to be looked at again next month.

This moved them on to Administrative Reports. Supt. Johnson began with a COVID19 update. He said he had a number of things to report to the board. As of this meeting (Oct. 12th) he had 5 students with positive tests, and one teacher with a positive test. He also had several students in 14-day quarantine because of close contact with the virus.

One volleyball game had been canceled because of a positive test from Dell Rapids St. Mary, and he let the board know that Dell Rapids St. Mary was closing for a week to help stop community spread there. (As of Oct. 19, our other near neighbor district Baltic was planning to do distance learning for a week to combat community spread, and their district released that they had 8 students and 7 staff members with positive tests.)

“So far we’ve been very fortunate,” Johnson said. “I can only credit that to both our staff and students, who have taken this pandemic seriously and have worn masks.”

Johnson said that the board and administration fears that the smallest students wouldn’t be able to maintain mask discipline was completely unfounded, as the youngest students have done exceptionally well in this regard. Principals Teresa Hulscher and Chris Long confirmed everyone in the building has taken it seriously. Principal Long said that only a few students in high school have had a problem maintaining masking, and that those students and the parents of those have been spoken with, and all have been quick to comply.

“Everyone wants to know what the number is, what the threshold will be for us to transition to phase 2 of limited class sizes in the building or transitioning to distance learning,” Johnson said.

Continued on Part 2- mailed subscription or higher level account required to view