The Winslow Unified School District Governing Board met last week for a regular meeting. During that meeting Superintendent Connie Gover reported a surge of COVID-19 cases within the district. In the time between Jan. 6-12, 62 positive cases were reported amongst students and staff in Winslow schools.
She said, “As you know, Navajo County is in a surge with the Omicron variant. In the past week, we have been following the updated CDC (Center for Disease Control) guidelines that state students and staff can return five days after a positive COVID test if their symptoms have let up and they will have to wear a mask for the following five days. Our numbers are showing that just today, we had 23 cases. It’s not just one school, it is all over.”
Gover continued, “What I was hired to do is facilitate education and to work during this pandemic to protect our students and keep them safe. When we accepted money from the government, with the CARES Act and others, we understood that it was going to go toward keeping our kids safe. We bought a lot of masks, dividers, sanitizer and added staff at the start to do this. However, our numbers continue to climb in this surge. So, I’m asking you, as a board, for your support as we go back to talk with the leadership team to develop a plan.
“Some things we could look at doing is a mask mandate or we can look at instructional time models and move days around. Some school districts in the state are going on ‘pause’ where they pause instruction for a week, but they have to make it up at the end of the year. We have discussed using our snow days to maybe slow it down, we have talked about options.”
Gover became emotional when she added, “I am here to keep people safe. I don’t want people getting sick and I really feel we need to keep our doors open. We have to figure out a way to do that. I just want to state for the record that my heart is keeping kids and staff safe and I want to do what’s right for our community. The thing is any decision we make is not going to be right. We need to do something.”
To that, Board President Joey Hartnett added, “I was involved in a meeting at LCMC (Little Colorado Medical Center) and they are expecting the peak of this within three weeks and then the numbers will drop off almost instantly. The reason for this is because probably everyone is going to have it. The good thing is the hospitalizations are very low so there is space in our local hospital. We do have to keep kids safe, and how do you do that with something that is so transmissible whether you’re wearing a mask or not or if you’re vaccinated or not? We will come up with something to help bring those numbers down and keep our doors open. It’s important to our kids for their mental stability and well being to try to let them have a normal life while trying to maintain a somewhat responsible environment.”
In an email from Winslow High School Principal Sal Hernandez, he explained that the WHS boys’ basketball program has been put on hold until some time this week due to an abundance of COVID cases among the team members. According to Hernandez, the program will adhere to the CDC guidelines for quarantine and isolation and will return to play as soon as it is safe.
During the meeting, the board elected their officers for the calendar year. Joey Hartnett was elected president and Allen Leonard will serve as vice president, while Debbie Martinez remains in her role as board clerk.
The board was also treated to a demonstration from The Brainstormers, a Robotics/Lego League team under the leadership of Bonnie Brennan teacher Steve Brodt.
Brodt explained the students are responsible for coming up with a solution to a provided problem as well as building and programming a robot for competition.
This year, he said, there were four teams of fourth grade students that competed against other teams from the region and The Brainstormers were able to place second overall and move on to the state level tournament. That will be held in March at Arizona State University.
Members of the team are Brody Leonard, Cody Barrios, Tobias Lenz, Julyien Lopez, Neveah Ellison, Jeron Jordan and Callum Hartnett.
In other business, the governing board:
* Approved a $2,500 stipend paid to employees that were continuously employed from July 1, 2020, to the present without administrative leave. Gover explained that the stipend will be funded by the ESSERII (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) grant and is a thank you to employees who stayed the course during the beginning of the pandemic.
* Ratified vouchers in a routine procedure that allows the board to submit vouchers to the Navajo County Superintendent of Schools between meetings.
* Heard a presentation from NAVIT (Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology) Superintendent Matt Weber. In his presentation, Weber praised WHS for their outstanding enrollment numbers in the program. He said, “Because of your enrollment numbers, you have been able to bring in about $334,000 that goes right back into the NAVIT program at your school.” Students have the option to participate in programs including Construction, Agriculture, Business, Law and Public Safety, Sports Medicine and Digital Printing as part of the on-campus NAVIT courses available at WHS.
* Approved an out of state travel request for the WHS softball team to Las Vegas, Nev., from April 13-16 for a tournament. The WHS Lady Diamonds Softball Club will cover the cost.
* Approved the hiring of Gary Roland as a part time bus driver.
* Accepted the resignation of Jared Jones, a paraprofessional and Robert Wagner, WHS Navajo Language teacher effective immediately.
* Accepted the resignation and retire-return-to-work of Shirley Lomeli, district business manager effective July 1.
* Approved extra duty stipends for music department staff members Tyler Allen and Bailey Cunningham.
* Approved WHS spring sports coaches: Christopher Garrett, Brady Needens, Anthony Reynoso, Brandon Sedillo, Jordan Payne and Jeff Hancock for baseball; Stacey Berg, Janeen Barton, Wilber Barton, Joseph Larsen, Jacob Berg and Jason Sandoval for track; and Megan Lymer-Reynoso, Stephanie Lymer, Briana Conatser, Monika Gose, Brent Lymer and Richard Smith for softball.
* Approved student activities fundraisers as follows: Student Council to sell Valentine Grams and provide concessions for the New Year’s Dance; and First Priority to sell Birthday Grams.
* Adopted a policy allowing vacation and holiday pay for full time transportation employees.
* Heard the finance report for December from Business Manager Shirley Lomeli. She stated 50% of the school year has elapsed with 37.3% of the budget spent. “We are in good shape financially at the district. We are relying heavily on grants for support right now, but we are in good shape.”
The next meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, in the board meeting room, located at 800 N. Apache Ave.
