by Garrick Moritz, Editor
The Garretson School Board met in regular session on Nov. 9, 2020. This meeting, the main topics of discussion were a vote to return COVID-19 testing kits to the Department of Health, approval of instituting a girls wrestling program, an update on how the pandemic is affecting our school and discussions on winter sports activities.
The board first approved the regular and consent agendas, including the school’s current financial statements and assessments.
Having no old business, the board proceeded directly to new business. First the board acknowledged that Nov. 16-20th was American Education Week, and they took a moment to recognize the importance of education in our community.
On the heels of this, they discussed the Associated School Boards of South Dakota Delegate Assembly, which will be held virtually this year. Many things about this year’s legislative session would not likely be business as usual. Board President Shannon Nordstrom was reappointed as the board’s ASBSD Delegate. Nordstrom reviewed and discuss with the board ASBSD standing positions and drafted legislative resolutions.
From that discussion, the following things should be noted. The ASBSD and our school supports shifting a state funding model of South Dakota Schools to a 2-year, rather than a 1-year model, so that school business managers and boards can have some continuity in budgetary planning. Their jobs are made more difficult when every year they have to wonder what the state legislature is going to do. Also, they want the state legislature and the Governor to follow the law, and increase school funding annually by either two percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. There is reason to be concerned about this, as the state has ignored this law in the past. They also firmly expressed the stance that unfunded mandates not be supported in any way.
Superintendent Guy Johnson also talked about the mandatory testing this school year, and how it might not be feasible at all this year, especially if the school has to switch to an online learning model. They also talked about support for a measure that included a proviso to state law, that if the state ignores the annual budgetary requirement rule, that the schools would not have to comply with mandatory testing requirement.
The board tabled discussion on a process for a superintendent evaluation for next meeting.
Next, the board discussed the adoption of a girls wrestling program. The South Dakota High School Activities Association ruled on creating this program statewide, and overall this was positively viewed. Already, we’ve seen trends of girls entering wrestling programs across the state and nation. It’s become popular enough that it was time, or maybe even past time that the girls had their own division for participation. Assistant Athletic Director Kevin Steckler addressed the board about it, and said that the current wresting coaching staff had zero issues incorporating girls into the sport and into their training programs.
In fact, he said that they were eager to get more students participating. In contests, girls will wrestle girls and boys will wrestle boys, just like all other sports competitions in SDHSAA.
Board member Tony Martens (once a GHS wrestler himself, and a long time Blue Dragon Wrestling supporter and superfan) enthusiastically made the motion to officially include Girls Blue Dragon Wrestling as an official winter sport, and the board unanimously agreed.
Next, the board tackled a difficult issue. The Garretson School had received a number of BinaxNOW antigen COVID-19 tests from the State Health Department for the school’s nurse personnel to use. Though great in theory, and on paper, Supt. Johnson said that the practical use of said tests were problematic.
He explained that these are great rapid tests, and can detect a positive case right away with high accuracy. However, the negative results aren’t as reliable and so if a student received one of these tests from one of our school nurses, and gotten a negative result, that student would still need a second test from a health care provider to confirm that negative result. On top of this difficulty, the school has only two part time nurses. To give these tests, they would have to wear full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) gear and testing windows would be extremely limited. Also, Supt. Johnson noted that one of the school’s part-time nurses had just gotten a promotion and would possibly not be able to continue as a school nurse for the district.
The board discussed this issue at length. Board member Rachel Hanisch, in her own personal family situation, had used an antigen test on her daughter, applied by a family member who is a doctor. The speedy results are extremely useful, especially when the wait time on a standard test has reached up to five days. This means these tests are a resource that the school wanted to think twice about keeping on hand. However, she agreed that if the school did not have the staff or resources to utilize these tests effectively, they should send them back to the State Department of Health, so that the tests could go to a hospital, medical practice or other such location where they could be put to immediate use to help combat the pandemic in a productive way, rather than gather dust in the school’s medical cabinet. The board voted to do so.
After reviewing some first and second readings of policy items, the board passed policy changes to a few items regarding personnel records, equal educational opportunity, compulsory attendance and alternative instruction.
Guy Johnson then gave his Superintendent’s report. At the time of this school board meeting, Supt. Johnson reported to the board that they had 35 students doing remote learning in quarantine because of a close contact (family member). Four students were out of school because of a positive test result.
One staff member was out because of positive result, and another staff member was out because of a pending test.
Supt. Johnson said that so far, the district has been able to cope, but like most things with this pandemic the future was uncertain. He praised the flexibility and the tenacity of our staff, teachers and students, and his extreme pride in everyone for continuing the work of education in this difficult year under difficult and unprecedented circumstances.
With school concerts upcoming, and having a public gathering being potentially dangerous, precautions will be taken. Performances will be staggered, in both the old gym and new gym, so that parents only need attend the performances of that interest them. Both current school policy and now city resolution cite the importance of wearing masks to any event.
Briefly the board discussed the current state of Parent/Teacher conferences, which were going on even as the board met. All of said meetings were being done virtually, and both principals reported success with the virtual platform. Middle School/High School Principal Chris Long said that he believed that teacher parent interaction was higher this year on the High School level because of the use of telecommunication.
Supt. Johnson then invited assistant AD Steckler to again speak to the board about the SDHSAA rulings about winter sports. Steckler said that the school will adopt a wait and see approach regarding school athletics this winter.
For basketball there are some minor changes on the bench and on the schedule that will be implemented. Wrestling will be the most difficult challenge, as by its very nature it’s a close contact sport. He said the SDHSAA is taking it very seriously with stringent recommendations for practice and tournaments. Practice will be in pods andt if someone in a pod gets a diagnosis then they can be kept separate from the team as a whole. Practice will be closed to the public, with no parents allowed. Tournaments or Quads might be extremely limited or even occur with no fans in attendance. As the season develops, he and the district will keep everyone informed as it continues to develop.
See page 10 for South Dakota Newspaper Association reports on SDHSAA.
The board heard reports from both Supt. Johnson and board member Ruth Sarar on the Prairie Lakes Coop, with discussion items resulting increasing payroll for counseling staff in the coop.
The board had no executive session and adjourned.
