By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school board met in a special meeting Thursday to implement what they said was the least restrictive COVID precautions possible as students are set to return to school on Wednesday.
The plan does not include a mask mandate, but masks are recommended. Superintendent Ron Wilson said the district could be forced to require masks later in the school year if COVID cases increase.
"We tried to be as least restrictive as possible here at the beginning of the school year," Wilson said. "We are going to see where this takes us. We will have to monitor. ... We have to be willing to be flexible, and we have to be willing to adjust to how the virus is working inside our community."
Contract tracing will continue, and assigned seating will be required in classrooms and on activity buses.
The district will offer rapid COVID-19 testing. No student or staff member will be required to be tested. No child will be tested without a parent or guardian's permission.
Rapid COVID-19 testing will be administered twice a week at Rockwell Administration Center at set times for any unvaccinated employees and Fort Hays State University field experience students.
During outbreaks and/or ongoing transmission, staff and FHSU field experience students who are not fully vaccinated may be asked to test for COVID-19 to prevent further transmission.
The district received federal funds to offset the cost of the testing. The district's health staff will perform all tests.
Board member Lance Bickle said he wanted to make clear the school district did not come into a windfall of money that allowed it to provide COVID tests.
"The decisions that we are making for the district, especially when it comes to being related to the health and safety of the students and staff, have absolutely nothing to do with money. Period. End of story," he said.
A close contact who exhibits symptoms will be required to quarantine for 10 days. Quarantine for students will be treated as an excused absence and as sick leave for staff.
On day five of a quarantine, a PCR test can be administered by a healthcare provider to staff or students to determine return to work/school on day seven.
Water fountains will be reopened, but students will be asked to use personal water bottles.
The district will encourage hand washing and sanitizing, social distancing when possible, and cleaning and disinfecting.
Visitors will be allowed in schools to start the year without restrictions.
Those students traveling for extracurricular activities will need to follow COVID precautions for the host school.
About 40 people attended the special board meeting, leaving standing room only in the board room. The board did not allow public comment Thursday, but the members said they are willing to receive emails concerning the policy. Board President Tammy Wellbrock said the board also will allow public comment during the board's next regular meetings on Aug. 23.
Wellbrock said in-person school is the main priority to achieve the district's mission.
"We are very aware that we need to balance this with the health and well-being of all our students and employees who make up USD 489," she said.
Wellbrock thanked the school staff, local medical staff and health department staff for their work in creating a document to deal with what she called an ever-changing virus.
Bickle said he had received a lot of feedback on masks.
"I will go so far as to say that not a single person sitting at this table or in the administration across from us wants our students or staff to wear masks," he said. "We also want to make sure that our students and staff are kept safe and in class and are not having to go through remote learning."
The school district will not offer Zoom learning for students who are in quarantine. Teachers will communicate with students and their families through Canvas for middle and high school students and Seesaw for elementary school students.
The district will also not offer parent-choice remote learning this school year. The state has chosen not to fund that option this year.
Bickle said the school district would move back to mask-wearing if the medical data supports it.
The district's ability to make changes as needed last year helped keep students in classes, he said, unlike many Kansas schools who were not able to have students in class until the third or fourth quarter of the last school year.
"Our students and staff have done a great job in wearing [masks] with many of them telling me personally that while they, like anyone else, do not like to wear them, they felt once they had them on, it really wasn't that big of a deal. They [said they] would far rather wear a mask and be in school than do remote learning.
"I honestly felt like our kids handled the mask situation way better than most of the adults," Bickle said.
Bickle urged the public to seek information on the virus from reliable medical sources and not forward unvetted information to other people.
"This is not going away," he said. "Unfortunately, we are going to have some rocky, uncertain times ahead of us. We have to work together to get through this. I want nothing more than to make sure the students, staff and administration are kept safe, and we get to keep everyone in school."
Board member Craig Pallister said although other school districts will be making different decisions for their students, Hays has to make the best decisions for its students.
"We need to keep the flexibility," he said. "We are a local board. This is a plan to start the school year. We need to react to how our numbers are going, how our teachers are doing, how staff [is doing]," he said.
He added, "We were very, very lucky last year to get every kid almost every day in front of that most important person, their teacher, face to face."
A link to the full USD 489 COIVD precaution plan can be found here.