Benny Westcott
Sweet Home High School wasted no time in getting back to pre-pandemic programming on Monday, March 14, the first school day in Oregon since the state’s long-held mask mandate was lifted on March 12.
The high-schoolers had a kick-off assembly to start spirit pride week.
High school math teacher Steve Thorpe said he had to help some kids figure things out in a procedure that was foreign to them.
“The only group of kids who had ever been to an assembly were juniors and seniors,” he said at the Monday night’s Sweet Home School District board meeting, noting how he directed freshmen and sophomores to where they should be.
The assembly came as the district switched from “mask required” to “mask friendly.”
Thorpe wrote on the board in his classroom: “If you wear a mask, great, if you don’t, great. You have the choice.”
The excitement of the mask mandate ending led to students acting up good-naturedly in the district’s classrooms, a situation that Thorpe made light of.
“Kids were horrible in the classroom today. I expected it coming in, and you can’t even corral that. We’re OK with that,” he said.
“There was a kind of newness to it,” he continued, and joked “It was neat getting to see what kids look like, some of them. I told some of them they probably need to keep their mask on,” adding, “I told them my beard got gray overnight.”
Classified union representative Velma Canfield, whose office is at Foster School, said, “Kids were feeling really good that they didn’t have to wear masks. And I didn’t hear anyone teasing anybody that was still wearing a mask. It seemed to be just a really happy place today.”
On Feb. 25, the district sent out a community survey to administrators, teachers, staff and parents to get feedback on the proposed masking change.
Of the 766 respondents, 674 – 87.99% – said that they would prefer to allow the wearing of face masks to be optional for in-person instruction. The remaining 92 survey respondents answered that they preferred to continue to require the universal wearing of face masks for in-person instruction.
On March 14, the district decided that masking will be optional for staff/students in the K12 setting (including school buses), regardless of vaccination status. As of that date, contact tracing was paused, and staff/student quarantine for close contact exposure if the person is asymptomatic was also paused.
School nurses, staff, students and visitors are still required to mask in areas of a school where healthcare is routinely delivered, such as health rooms and isolation spaces.
As of March 14, symptomatic and/or COVID-19 positive staff and students are required to isolate for a minimum of five days, and can return to school on Day 6 if they are fever-free for 24 hours and their symptoms are improving.
The vaccine requirement remains in effect for K-12 staff, visitors, volunteers and contractors.
In other news from the board meeting:
— Thorpe announced that assistant high school wrestling coach Tim Boatwright has been exonerated of all the accusations brought against him for allegedly grabbing a cowboy hat off of Lebanon High School wrestler Darius Freeman’s head during the Linn County Championships wrestling tournament held at Sweet Home High School on Jan. 7.
After the incident, Darius’s dad, Travis Freeman, 38, of Lebanon, told a reporter he was seeking an attorney to ask them about pursuing the accused actions as a civil rights issue. KEZI TV aired a piece on the incident and its aftermath.
“He was completely exonerated,” Thorpe said of Boatwright. “He did not assault a boy and steal a hat. He did not discriminate. He did not target. He is not a racist.
“All investigations came back. The police report included that he didn’t do anything of what he was accused of doing. Nor did KEZI come up and say ‘yeah, sorry about that.’
“No apologies.”
Boatwright has coached in Sweet Home for 42 years, 32 of which he was also a teacher.
“I want you guys to know that Tim Boatwright, 42 years in this district, did not do a single thing, not an inch of what he was accused of,” Thorpe said. “I knew the outcome five minutes after I found out about it, that it wasn’t true, but I know there’s a process you’ve got to go through.”
— Sweet Home High School Athletic Director Dan Tow gave an update on sports at the high school as senior Chloe Tyler also sat in to show off to board members the girls swim team’s state championship trophy.
“Winter sports were great,” Tow said. “There were things about it that weren’t easy because it was indoors. It was a little stressful at the start. Masking was hard. But we got through it and it went fairly well.”
He said that the high school had a total of almost 150 kids out for winter sports, noting that it was “a pretty good turnout for a school our size.”
The boys basketball team had three squads, and the girls had two. About 50 wrestlers competed, and about a dozen of those were girls. Twenty-three girls took part in cheerleading. Sixteen girl swimmers and eight boys also competed.
“When I compare our school to others that we compete against, we always have as many or more teams than most of the schools that we play. That’s a great thing,” Tow said.
Now spring sports are under way, and Tow said the numbers are strong for this season as well.
“For the first time in a long time we have three softball teams,” he said. “Almost nobody has three teams, so I’m scrambling around finding schools that we can play. But it’s a good problem to have.”
He said the Huskies are also fielding three baseball teams as well, and have “a decent number of golfers.”
Tow noted that between 50 and 60 kids are out for track.
“That’s a very good turnout. Bigger than we’ve had in recent years.”
“It’s probably no big surprise,” he said. “Parents are happy to have their kids out for sports and doing things, and we have good turnouts here.”
— A poll was conducted among people who have been active in recent long range facility planning meetings for the district, to determine which “facility needs” the group deemed as being most important to address.
The need the group considered most important was to “improve security by eliminating separate entrances, improving surveillance and installing security vestibules where needed.”
The second most pressing need was to “update and seismically retrofit Oak Heights Elementary School” and the third was to “add or reconfigure space at Hawthorne and Oak Heights so the gyms are no longer also used as cafeterias.”
n April being Child Abuse Prevention Month, Sweet Home Police Community Services Officer Sean Morgan asked those associated with the district to display blue pinwheels to raise awareness about child abuse and its prevention.
The pinwheels can be picked up for free at The New Era, the Police Department and the Chamber of Commerce.
There will be an informative presentation at the Sweet Home Police Department at 10 a.m. on April 2 about how to help prevent child abuse and the nature of the problem, followed by a march and the planting of a pinwheel garden.
“We want to turn this town blue,” Morgan said.
“During the month of April, we recognize the importance of communities working together to help families thrive and prevent child maltreatment throughout the year,” Morgan noted. “Communities are encouraged to increase awareness of child and family well-being and work together to implement effective strategies to support families who have had child abuse and neglect.”
— As the board continues its systematic assessment of its Board Policy Manual, the Board approved a second reading of 11 policies, but asked that Supt. Lisa Riggs reach out to an Oregon School Board Association (OSBA) attorney to find out why the Confederate battleflag is listed as a hate symbol in the existing Board Policy Manual.
Board Member Dale Keene noted that use of that image is protected under the Constitution.
Board Member Kevin Hill sided with Keene’s take on the matter.
“I don’t agree that the battleflag of the Confederacy is a hate symbol,” Hill said. “I know my brother-in-law teaches history, and he uses that when he’s teaching Civil War history. So there would have to be some qualification, I would think, rather than just a blanket statement on that.”
— The board unanimously approved instituting a quarterly evaluation of the district’s superintendent as the OSBA now has a new process that allows for quarterly rather than annual superintendent evaluations.
— The district is up $843,000 in general fund spending through the end of February compared to the same time period the year before. The most significant spending increases include labor costs, substitutes, benefit costs, and supplies and materials.
— The board accepted the retirement of John Mithen, PE teacher at Oak Heights Elementary, effective June 30.