SHAWANO, WI- With back to school coming up around the corner, a recommendation from the Shawano School District Administration team was to follow the CDC recommendations to mask all students and staff, maintain three feet distance as much as possible, continue to screen staff and offer to test on-site and keep students in school face to face. That recommendation was presented to the Policy and Curriculum Committee on Monday.
Board members brought up concerns with masking and quarantining.
“I think when the CDC changed that last year, that really frustrated a lot of parents,” said Jim Davel. “The school stayed with a 14-day quarantine, and public health was saying 10, so we need to be very clear about these things this year.”
“When do think we will start treating this like the flu since it is not going away,” asked Chris Gull. “This fantasy of the vaccine will kill this virus, that is not going to happen. There has to be a point where we treat it as what it is, a virus.”
The recommended plan still includes social distancing plans like the last school year.
“Keeping people with the same kids as much as possible just helps with contact tracing,” said school nurse Jessica Wiesman. “We will however be able to allow for shorter quarantine periods now.”
The Shawano School District does have a contact tracing team in each building to assist with that process.
The district will continue to offer a screening testing option for people who do not have symptoms or positive COVID-19 at the time. There is also a plan to continue to test those students who are not feeling well.
“Rather than having to send them home for 10 days, we can test them and see what the results are,” School Nurse Heather Demerath said. “A lot of times it was something other than COVID-19 and we were able to keep them from having to stay home for a period of time.”
Newly elected board member Jim Davel expressed some of his concerns that he had last year as a parent.
“We can’t go so archaic with constraints that it becomes a hindrance to learning,” Davel said.” We just learned how this affected the students last year and how far behind they are. We have to be more flexible as a board and as a staff to make changes when things do change. We lost seven months of school because we were so gunshy.”
Superintendent Randi Anderson said as of right now, they intend to start the year face-to-face and keeping it that way all year if possible. She says High School students have what they would call a normal schedule as it was in years past.
“Our goal will be to try to hold to the normal schedule. Our goal is to keep our kids in school 100 percent.”
Anderson said she agrees that flexibility is the keyword when it comes to COVID procedures.
“Maybe we look at a rolling model, so right now where our numbers are at, maybe we say the staff is masked and students are optional, but if our numbers go up, we mask everyone,” Anderson asked.
Davel said he did not agree that masking students should be a requirement and requested that it be changed to masking optional for students when the Executive Committee looks at the proposal.
“I did not like last year when the Governor’s masking order was lifted and we didn’t say that. We have to be clear with parents about what the expectation is. If I was to vote tonight, I would say no to masking.”
The other committee members Diane Hoffman, Jamie Beyer, and Chris Gull agreed to the wording change to Executive to consider.
Davel also addressed concerns with vaccinations.
“The other concern I have is being clear with parents if we are going to have a requirement to vaccinate because parents are asking. I personally disagree with mandating vaccines, but we need to say that and we need to do that soon because school is right around the corner and they need to know.”
Anderson said that it is not the plan right now.
“I can tell you that as far as vaccines, the school district, at this point in time, has no intentions of requiring a vaccine, that is not recommended,” Anderson said.”
Jamie Beyer said her concern centers around being clear about when the District will take different actions regarding COVID-19 procedures.
“I agree that it needs to be a fluid situation, but I also want to see that the threshold is clear, said Jamie Beyer. “Are 100 cases too many, are 1,000 cases too many, what are we going off of?
Wiesman said the CDC uses a 7-day count and the state of Wisconsin still uses a 14-day count, so it is really important to pay attention to what numbers are being reported.
“I subbed in the elementary school when kids had to mask, and it was gross, you can’t keep kids from sucking on the masks and coloring on them, and I had one kid who colored on hers and put it back on and her face was blue,” Beyer said.
Weisman said it comes down to education and a learning process for the kids.
“I think it needs to be fluid, but I think we need to let our parents know what source we are using for numbers so they are not caught off guard,” Diane Hoffman said. “We need to share out where we get our numbers, what trends we are looking for and what would result in change.”
Anderson also indicated that learning at home will look different.
“One of the things that we learned last year was that synchronous learning was tasking on our staff and difficult to do and we still have broadband issues so that we will not be offering that the same way and that is why we want to be face-to-face whenever possible.”
The district proposal is to change their plan to have only students who are out for four days or more participate in synchronous learning. Those who are out for three days or less would be like a typical sickness absence where students could get work sent home, but would make things up when they came back.”
“As a parent, I was ticked off with how longs kids were forced to quarantine if they were exposed,” Davel said. “I thought we moved the needle so far last year and pegged it to one side, and we have to be more flexible.”
Chris Gull said it is time to respond based on what is happening in the district only.
“Number one has to be what is happening in our buildings,” Chris Gull said. “Not looking at what is happening in Wittenberg, but what is happening here.”
The committee also requested looking closer at the quarantine requirements.
“We can’t be so set in our ways that we are not going to reduce a quarantine and we have to be flexible to increase restrictions as well, but what we had last year was all one-sided and gloom and doom,” said Davel.
“We need to know what the threshold is,” said Beyer. “If there are six, do we need to mask, or will it take 36 people, because people will want to know that.”
The committee requested creating quantifying a gradient scale around when masking would be required and more consistent quarantining procedures.
“Our goal is to keep all the students in as much as possible,” said Anderson.
The Executive Committee will meet Tuesday evening to discuss the same issue. The full School Board will take a vote and make a decision on Monday.
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