Mahomet-Seymour School Board hears about Reopening Task Force

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com

Superintendent Lindsey Hall provided a COVID-19 Reopening Task Force Update to the Mahomet-Seymour School Board on June 8. 

Hall likened planning for the 2020-21 school year to “building a plane while flying it.”

The district, like all other districts in Illinois, are awaiting guidance from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to finalize the plans to bring students back to school.

Illinois students were provided remote learning opportunities after stay-at-home orders were issued in mid-March. 

The task force will continue to create and prepare a defined structure for three different teaching/learning plans for starting the 20-21 school year. The plans will focus on full-time, in-person school with restrictions, hybrid/blended learning model and remote/distance/online learning.

The large group was divided into sub-committees to focus on different areas within the district. The district assistant principals are part of the Facilities and Health committee, Director of Instruction Nicole Rummel is in charge of instructional expectations for Pre-K through grade 12, Director of Special Education Christine Northrup is in charge of Special Education, 504 and Homebound Instruction along with Social Emotional needs. Coordinator of Student Services Marissa Hill will focus on Pre-K and Director Of Facilities will focus on facilities, Director Of Transportation Nick York will focus on busing and the District Nurse Nita Bachman will focus on health. 

“It’s hard to put your arms around something that you don’t know what it’s going to look like at this point,” Hall said. “But we feel it is important to be talking about this topic at this point, and not trying to put plans together later on in the summer. This puts us on the launch pad, but we want to be able to react and respond to the guidance that we get from the state board of education.” 

“I can’t make any promises on what that is going to look like,” she said. 

The Instructional subcommittee met to discuss considerations for assessing students’ academic and social-emotional learning needs, teaching and learning best practices, staff, student and parent roles, RtI and additional supports, family needs and logistics. 

The Support Services Subcommittee has been outlining the instructional needs of students with IEPs along with identifying the potential social and emotional needs of students in each phase of Restore Illinois. 

The Health Subcommittee has been working on a return to work plan and an illness flowchart while the facilities and transportation subcommittees are working on cleaning and sanitizing protocols. 

Teachers and paraprofessionals received stipends for time spent outside of their contract.

“We have not begun to scratch the surface of the complexity of transporting students under the guidelines that we could be given; that’s going to be an immense challenge,” Hall said. 

“I realize fully that putting this information out raises, I can’t even think of, 100s of additional questions. I just want to say we don’t know yet. I would love to know. I would love to be able to have an answer, but we are literally in the midst of figuring this out right now.”

ISBE is expected to release their guidelines this week, and Hall said parents will be updated on Mahomet-Seymour’s plans by the end of June. 

Mahomet-Seymour parents received a survey in May from the district with questions about transportation, if and when the parent would send their child to school, the need for after school care through Kid’s Club, the need for B.L.A.S.T programming, access to devices, internet reliability, special education needs and work schedules.

Hall reported that about 60 to 65-percent of district families responded. 

About 57-percent of parents said they would not or they were not sure if they would send their child on a school bus. According to the survey, the majority (50-percent) of parents seemed most interested in a schedule where students came one week, then worked virtually or attended on alternate days of the week; about 38-percent said they would be interested in a model where their child went to school everyday with shortened hours.

The district has already purchased 400 personalized cloth masks for staff, 10 gowns per building, a no touch thermometer per school and one for Bachmann’s use, 100 disposable masks per school and 10 additional masks per school with more protection for staff who might interact with individuals who might be sick. 

Hall said the district has spent approximately $1,000 on the items so far. 

Mahomet-Seymour staff members also completed a couple surveys. Hall said about half of the staff responded to the survey, of which 9 said that they would not feel comfortable returning to school in the fall, several other staff members responded maybe.

“It could be more than that, knowing that we have not heard from all of our teachers,” she said.

Board member Max McComb said that bus drivers may also have health concerns related to COVID-19 since they are usually older. 

“We need to keep people safe and healthy, both staff and students” Hall said. 

Board member Meghan Hennesy said that she found it difficult to provide feedback to the district because there was not information about what sending kids back to school would actually look like. She suggested that when the district releases their plan, they also reach back out to parents for another round of opinions. 

Board member Merle Giles suggested that the district work with Arbor Food Management to see what needs to be done for food preparation should students go back. He also asked them to look into plexiglass for buses with the bus vendor.

Board member Jeremy Henrichs wanted to know about the district’s plan to screen students as they arrive and if the district had a plan in place for sick children to return back to the classroom. Hall said that temperature screenings would probably be required upon arrival. Hall also said that it might include a note from the doctor, a quarantine period or a negative test, although those guidelines have not been given yet. 

Hennesy suggested that the district keep track of all of the COVID-19 related expenses.

The Mahomet-Seymour School District received $275,242 or $88.39 per student in CARES money. Chief School Business Officer Heather Smith said she would go over the plan for this money at a later date. The federal money was distributed based on free and reduced lunch numbers per school district.

Board member Ken Keefe asked when the board would begin to work on the board-level decisions that need to be made.

A May 29 release from the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) says, the “board of education plays a critical role in the development and oversight of plans involving the reopening and closing of schools during and following the pandemic. The board determines policy and the strategic priorities of the district (the “what”), while the administrative staff implements the plan (the “how”).”

According to the document, school boards should be engaged in Governance and Policy Considerations, including how plans will be implemented, how decisions and plans will be reported, and how progress toward initiatives will be monitored and communicated. 

The documents suggests that boards should consider a plan that includes any or all of the following areas: Governance and Policy, Internal and External Communications , School Facilities, Academic and Program, Social and Emotional, Fiscal and  Human Resources.

McComb asked for additional clarification, and Keefe said that he was wondering when the board would talk about expectations about school calendars, opening contingencies, HR policy and how staff who are experiencing infections will be handled, how and when students will be engaged remotely or in-person through the different phases.

Hall said those issues were being dealt with within the subcommittees. 

Keefe said he wasn’t talking about being engaged at the implementation level, but rather at the strategic board level. 

“As far as students and how we are going to handle remote before we can do anything, we need an understanding of what the state is going to tell us,” McComb said. “From what Dr. Hall is hearing, a lot of those decisions will be made for us. And then I think it’s up to the task force to work out the operating details in that. 

“I’m not sure that the policy part of when we’re going to do remote and when we’re not going to do remote and who qualifies for remote; I don’t know that we are going to have much local decision-making to do there.” 

Keefe referenced the IASB document, which has hundreds of tasks for the board of education. 

“It sounds to me like one strategy is to delegate all of the what questions to other people, but I would support us getting involved and doing that work ourselves,” Keefe said. 

Giles said that COVID-19 should be on every agenda, which Hennesy has asked for since March. 

“And then encourage ourselves to get specific agenda items in early for discussion, but there’s 100 items on that list, I wouldn’t be opposed to we set up a temporary committee with a couple board members,” Giles said.

Keefe agreed.

McComb responded, “Well, I saw on the list as far as the what; quite frankly, let’s just take the transportation piece. I don’t see the seven of us working on  the transportation piece, that’s got to be the transportation department.

“A lot of that is software driven; we’re not familiar with how that works. Once we get some general guidelines, as far as how many and who we can transport, and how many students we are bringing on campus at once, we might have to make some decisions regarding additional resources or staff.”

According to the IASB document, which are only suggestions, not a governing document, the only role that the board would play in transportation is to inspect the bus sanitizing procedures and Prepare sample communications to parents/guardians related to expectations of parents and students if the district moves to Remote Learning or modified school openings.

Henrichs said he feels comfortable with a briefing from Hall every board meeting.

“It frees us up to look at it from a higher level, that 30,000 foot-level,” Henrich said. “We’re mired in details all the time. We have Lindsey to work out and work through the what and the how, but for us to really look at it from a bigger picture, and like we are doing tonight, we ask questions, we make suggestions, and try to work through some of the problems.

Board member Lori Larson read that the board is to “be sufficiently informed and act on specific issues before the board.”

“That comes to us,” Larson said. “It doesn’t mean that we create it.” 

Keefe suggested that the board break the items into groups that can be discussed at upcoming board meetings. 

“I’m uncomfortable with delegating the board-level decisions to our staff,” he said. “I think that that’s what we were elected to do.” 

McComb said he didn’t think that the board was delegating those decisions. 

Hall said that she believes board members should review the document and decide what is board-level and what is staff work. 

“There is board work, and then, frankly, to me, I see a lot of it is handing it off to administration or other staff,” Hall said. 

Larson chimed in that it is the board role to delegate the authority to the Superintendent.

The board decided to look at the list on their own time, then talk about it at the next meeting.