Two employees were recognized for their retirement during the Snowflake Unified School District Governing Board meeting on March 12. Doris Davis and Jean Ellsworth served at Taylor Elementary School for 41 years each. Principal of Taylor Elementary Jeremy Hatch read each retiree a very heartfelt letter.
“I wrote a letter for each of the retirees. I did this because I just couldn’t peg down a few things. They’ve been super important to me and I hope this letter conveys my feelings about them and my love for them,” said Hatch.
Ellsworth and Davis will be missed greatly by the district as there were many tears and smiles in the room as each retiree said their farewells and thanks surrounded by their loved ones who came to see them be recognized.
Further discussed at the meeting was the district’s current plan of action for dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic. Superintendent Hollis Merrell gave a report on a lengthy phone conference he attended with the governor and state health director, Dr. Cara Christ.
“At 5 p.m. today our state released a lengthy document that will provide a lot of guidelines for schools but right now they are not recommending any school closures or cancellation of after-school programs or sporting events. To date, there is only nine cases in Arizona, seven of those are presumptive cases, which means they’ve been tested in Arizona but not by the CDC, two of those cases have been confirmed by the CDC. There are still zero cases in Navajo County,” reported Merrell.
“I’ve been told that it was going around on Facebook that one of our students and a student from a neighboring school had coronavirus but that is completely false. We did have some students who attended a public event outside of the area recently and received some information from a health director in that area that, as a precaution, they may want to self-quarantine.”
“We identified them and asked them to do that but none of them were symptomatic and, as far as we know, you are not contagious unless you are showing symptoms so we asked them to go home today and tomorrow and their 14 days will be past when spring break is over, as purely a precautionary measure.”
Merrell noted that he will be keeping a close eye on the best course of action to handle the spread of the novel coronavirus within the community. He will be attending three weekly meetings and briefings with state health officials.
In other business the board:
* Approved a Universal Policy for the Athletic Code of Conduct. The policy will implement a code of conduct at the games and practices for players and coaches.
* Approved an updated internet agreement for internet use at the school by students and staff.
* Approved a Request for Proposal (RFP) asking for bids from yearbook vendors looking to enter into a contract with the high school yearbook committee for the next five years.
Business Manager Mark Ollerton briefly presented a proposed salary schedule for the 2020-2021 school year. Base pay for certified teachers will increase by $938 with the stipulation of not being in a frozen pay contract.
New positions in the district were approved by the board. The district added seven new positions, converted the title of counselor to a mental health counselor at Snowflake High School and hired one new custodian to the maintenance/custodial department.
