by Garrick A Moritz, Gazette
The Garretson School board met in regular session on Jan. 10. It was a short meeting but a few important topics were raised.
The first thing of note was a very large water service invoice the school received from the city.
“Apparently we used more than a million gallons of water at the sports complex,” said Supt. Guy Johnson. “I was not aware of any malfunctions or maintenance issues reported from our staff, but Jacob [Schweitzer, School Business Manager] is looking into the issue.”
Board Member Ryan Longhenry said that he’d heard there were issues with faulty water meters around town, so hopefully that is the issue, and not a massive leak somewhere at the facility.
Next the school talked about their COVID-19 Mitigation Plan. Cases are spiking around the country and the state. Luckily, as of Monday, there was only one staff member and 3 students with active cases of COVID-19 in the district.
With new CDC guidelines to shorten quarantine periods to five days, instead of ten, Supt. Johnson wondered if the board wanted to modified their policy, which was still for a 10-day quarantine from school for students and staff. These guidelines, however, were issued just as the Omicron variant was spiking cases nationwide. With new guidance likely coming soon from the South Dakota High School Activities Association, Supt. Johnson suggested maybe a wait and see approach was best, and to leave the stricter 10-day policy in place for now.
“Honestly, I don’t think we’ve seen the full fallout from the holiday season,” said Longhenry. “The things I worry about are the age groups of our little kids who can’t get vaccinated, even though they seem to be much more resilient against the pandemic.”
“Administratively we worry about having enough staff to keep us functional,” said Guy Johnson. “We’ve been incredibly fortunate so far, but our pool of substitute teachers is small.”
Already, under the essential workers clause, teachers can return to work when they are functional, as long as they mask and distance.
School Board President Shannon Nordstrom hoped that South Dakota had hit the top of the spike of this wave, though Board member Rachel Hanisch had her doubts. She, as well as all the teachers in attendance at the meeting, were wearing masks for the entirety of the session.
Ultimately, the school board opted to leave the existing policies in place, and table the discussion for next meeting. The reasoning was that a 10-day quarantine would be better to mitigate viral spread among the student body. Next month they will likely have more input from other governmental bodies.
A return to a mask mandate was not discussed, though it perhaps may be, if case numbers continue to increase.
“If this pandemic has taught us anything it’s how to be flexible,” said Supt. Johnson. “And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our staff is amazing and I have no worries on that end, they’ve showed time and time again that they can handle anything.”
“I want to say that I think we’ve been incredibly lucky,” said Longhenry. “I think we’ve been one of the luckiest districts in the state, you compare us with other schools and even some of our close neighbors, we’ve done really well. And part of that has been that our people are really great, and are willing to do whatever they have to protect our kids.”
Next the board reviewed policies. Some just for informational purposes, some for a first draft reading and three for review and passage.
The first policy reviewed plans to increase the money per student for expense reimbursements while on school trips. Supt. Johnson said he was grateful this was brought to the board’s attention, as it was time this policy saw a revision and increase.
The next policy reviewed alternative instruction participation. Supt. Johnson elaborated new policies that would create clear guidelines and boundaries for home school students to participate in school events. Home school students, just like regular students, would have to maintain eligibility requirements to participate, and the school would receive regular reports for their normal weekly eligibility check. Also, if someone is participating in a sport, doesn’t meet the eligibility requirement, and then says, ‘nope, I’m leaving school and I’m going to home school so I can keep playing sports,’ then they automatically will be disqualified for the rest of the sports season. Supt. Johnson said these new policies will neatly close any loopholes the legislature left open. Though, who knows what they’ll do again this year.
Supt. Johnson then transitioned into a legislative update. He pointed out two senate bills filed that might be of potential interest, SB-59, setting tax levies for schools, and SB-72, criminalizing hazing.
He also noted, with just a little bit of frustration, that there are three transgender legislative bills that have been filed in the house.
“This has been settled again, and again, and again,” Supt. Johnson said. “If the legislature passes bills like this, they’re inevitably challenged in court, a school district tries to follow the law, then gets sued and they go to court and they lose, and then the law gets struck down. It would save everyone a great deal of time and money, not to mention the headache for schools, parents and students statewide, if they just didn’t do it. But if any of those bills pass this legislative session, I’d like to see a rider added to each one that makes it the fiscal responsibility of the State Legislature to pay any and all the legal fees associated with any litigation that occurs from passing these laws.”
He noted that there has been a bill filed allowing people to sue school districts who require a COVID vaccine for students. Also, there is a proposed excise tax of 15% for marijuana sales that would be intended to fund state education.
There will be a school board election cycle this year, and all seats are open with the exception of the seat held by Kari Flanagan. Persons interested in running for the school board can contact Business Manager Schweitzer for voting petition forms.
Supt. Johnson also noted that the Garretson Athletic Booster club went 50/50 on the purchase of a new media table for video recording and live broadcasting of sporting events in the gym on the Alliance channel and social media outlets.
The board also reviewed two potential options for the new opt out vote date. First was to schedule the vote for April 12th which would share the vote date with the school board and city council elections. The next would be a separate election date of May 10th, two weeks prior to the end of the school year.
Board President Nordstrom said that they will discuss the pros and cons of both dates at the board retreat this Thursday, Jan. 13.
The board finished with an executive session regarding a personnel matter. The next public meeting of the Garretson School Board will be held on Monday, February 14 at 5:45 p.m.
