Kelly Kenoyer
Last week’s Sweet Home School Board meeting opened emotionally as a desperate parent, Jenna Northern, told attendees “what we’re doing now is not working.”
Board members Jason Redick, Mike Reynolds, Debra Brown, Dale Keene, Joe Kennedy and Jim Gourley attended the Nov. 9 meeting, with Jenny Daniels, Chanz Keeney, and Jason Van Eck absent.
Northern told the board that her kindergartener and fifth-grader, who attend Hawthorne School, are regressing and cry every day about having to attend school through screens. As her family lives outside city limits, they have poor internet connection.
“I’ve been told to sit in a parking lot and that’s it,” she said, advice given to parents who struggle with internet connection. “I have put my entire career on hold to put my children first, and we don’t know what to do.”
Sweet Home Public Schools are limited by the COVID case rate of the entire county, which is significantly worse-off than Sweet Home itself at this time. Linn County’s case rate was last measured at 145.4 cases per 100,000 in a two-week period, still well above the 100 cases-per-capita limit that would have allowed grade school students to begin returning to on-site instruction.
Supt. Tom Yahraes said the new metrics will also allow schools to incrementally re-open all the way through high school if the numbers stay below that 100 cases per capita number, and that these restrictions are much more doable than the previous metrics were.
“The Oregon Department of Education recognized in-person learning is superior to distance learning for most of our kids. It’s their highest priority to get kids back in school,” he said.
He added students are really struggling with distance learning.
“Oregon Health Authority has received a spike in reports of depression and mental health strains from students and staff,” he said. “The state is recognizing that in-person for most students is better.
“Across the state, student scores are suffering. There’s too much screentime.”
Yahraes noted that schools provide access to meals, nurses, counselors, school psychologists, and mental health. On top of that, schools are well-positioned to help track and manage COVID outbreaks, as they already have screening and quarantine processes in place.
“We have effective screening processes and we have a response to cases that is swift.”
School Nurse Patty O’Day told the board about some of the COVID-19 precautions in place to keep students from contracting the virus. They include cohorts of students limited to 20, strict requirements for mask use for students and staff alike, and handwashing.
““Students can remove masks for individual supervised mask breaks,” she said, and COVID transmission rates are very low if everyone wears masks.
She said “an exposure is anyone who gets within six feet of an individual with COVID-19 for longer than 15 cumulative minutes in a day.”
Yahraes told the board his staff is working on a plan for returning grade schoolers to classes while leaving room in the system for a return for older students. “We want to bring all the kids back.
“I support the new metrics. There is a resolution of support for the Board to consider tonight,” Yahraes said. “Even with easing the new standards, our Linn County case counts have exceeded the allowable limits. Now more than ever, to get our students back in school, we need to work together to reduce case counts by following the OHA health and safety guidance of wearing masks, social distancing, and washing your hands and so forth.”
Bringing all students back requires a major overhaul in the district’s original plans for a return, which were largely focused on K-3 as the metrics for older students were too far out of reach. The district will need to develop plans that still only involve 20 children in a normal classroom at a time, with similar restrictions for hallways and bathrooms. The district intends to have younger students back five days a week to help develop foundational skills like math and reading. For high school students, the focus is on getting each student the credits they need to graduate on time. But it’s mathematically impossible to get all students back full-time with the social distancing requirements from the state.
“We need to have a half or less mentality,” said Chief Academic Officer Rachel Stucky, pointing to limitations on school buses as well. “How do we optimize in-person robust instruction?”
The district will continue to provide distance learning for the 15% or so students who want it, but will likely cut staff on that side to bring over to classrooms.
On top of the mathematical challenges of fitting students in, there are the logistics of cleaning classrooms between sessions. While the district has enough supplies to clean, it will be a matter of training janitorial staff to clean quickly and within the restrictions of the schedule.
“The virus controls the timeline,” Yahraes said. “I’d like to be able to say that on Nov. 15 or Dec. 15, we’ll bring the kids back, but that would be the incorrect thing to do. We would be letting our community down.”
“We can be poised to build our new plan. We’ll get it done.”
The district is continuing to closely monitor the case rate across Linn County, and developed a method to help predict whether it will drop below 100 cases per capita.
He plans to have schedules built within a week to accommodate programming for K-12 classes.
The school board unanimously passed the superintendent’s resolution of support for the new metrics.
In other action:
– The board heard a presentation from third grade teacher Hailey Schilling about how her teaching has gone at a distance. She uses videos to engage with the students and develops assignments based on those videos.
Kennedy asked whether the students are low engagement or high engagement, and Schilling responded that certain students are very engaged while others are “nervous to talk.”
“It feels more like a stage when they’ll be looking at you on the screen like that,” she said. Kennedy then asked whether she engages the parents to redirect students who have trouble paying attention, and Schilling said she has limited tools for getting students to refocus “because I’m so far away.”
Yahraes added that “reengaging is really difficult. For struggling students, the in-person is very important.”
– The board heard a presentation about limited in-person instruction, a program which allows students to come to school in person under certain circumstances. The state recently increased the cohort size from 10 to 20, which is helping staff help more students, according to High School Assistant Director Chris Hiassen.
“To get good engagement, we really needed to see them in person,” she said. So far, 175 students have been involved in LII, some coming twice a week and some attending just once to get some extra help.
“Beginning next week we are adding more options for students,” she said, and the district is also creating an online homework hub continuously monitored by teachers so students can quickly get help when they need it.
The LII programming is available to anyone who calls and asks for it, as the circumstances which allow it are very broad: supporting engagement and attention, as well as mental health, are both elements.
“Students who come into the building get a lot of work done, and they’re really happy to be there,” she added.
LII is also available at the middle school and grade school levels.
– Oregon School Employee Association President Lisa Gourley told the board her organization has been working to help districts impacted by the summer’s wildfires. She said OSEA is planning to bring pallets of books to Sweet Home High School to give away to families impacted by the fires, and her husband, Board Member Jim Gourley, is helping coordinate.
– The district had two OSHA reportable incidents in the month of October involving staff members.
– Operations Manager Josh Darwood told the board the Junior High is “looking really good,” though some elements of construction got held up because of subcontractors. He said there are a few rooms that will get wiring and sheetrock in the next few weeks. He also mentioned new training for janitorial staff on COVID safety practices, including the use of a new electrostatic sprayer which will sanitize classrooms.
– Business Manager Kevin Strong informed the board that the district’s bond rate is down $0.13 per $1,000 of assessed value compared to the 2013-14 fiscal year, and the local option rate is down $0.02 per $1,000. That’s the lowest bond rate of any school district in Linn County, he said.
By comparison, the tax rates charged by city of Sweet Home went up $1.80 in that time, Linn County by $0.17, and the 4H/OSU Extension service went up by $0.02.
Linn-Benton Community College charges $0.02 less compared to 2013-14, and Sweet Home Fire/Ambulance district charges $0.10 less per $1,000 of assessed value.
Strong called the lower rate from the school district a success, as the district promised to maintain the current tax rate when it sought the bond in 2017.
– The board passed a resolution to adopt the Oregon School Board Association’s priorities and principles for 2021-2022. Redick said the resolution is meant to “support them and their lobbying to help us.”