By L. Parsons In last week’s meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board it was announced that student athletes could resume their summer workouts. However, according to Athletic Director Kourtney Hendricks, there will be modifications in order to help slow the spread of COVID-19. “The Center for Disease Control, the Arizona Interscholastic Association and the Arizona Department of Education have all given us the go ahead to start working out again to prepare for our fall sports seasons. They do have recommendations and we will be following them as we open up our facilities in phases.” For the first two weeks of the reopening of the weight room, the facilities will only be open to Winslow High School students. Groups of six athletes and one coach will be allowed and will be required to adhere to physical distancing guidelines. During that time, small group workouts will also be held at Emil Nasser Stadium six times a day. Recommendations from the CDC also include not sharing equipment, so footballs and water bottles will not be communal. Weights will be wiped down before and after each use. WHS football coach Brandon Guzman said, “To sign up for a time slot to use the weight room and participate in group workouts, please email me and include your name and top three choices for lifting times.” Guzman can be reached at bguzman@wusd1.org. Workout times are 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 a.m. as well as 6 p.m. Guzman said, “We will email you back with your group assignment and instructions on what to bring.” Hendricks explained that there will be temperature screenings for students and coaches before entry in to the weight room. “We won’t be requiring masks, because it is very hard to work out in a mask, but we will be taking all other precautions. Students will be asked to sign a waiver before participating.” The next phase, according to Hendricks will likely begin on July 1. “At that point, we hope to reopen our baseball and softball fields and our gym. Hopefully, we will be able to share equipment at that time because right now, they are asking that we don’t even pass the balls to each other.” The high school has purchased water bottle refill stations and will have one installed in the weight room for student athlete use. The governing board held an executive session in which they discussed extra duty stipends for district faculty and staff. Following the session, governing board president Sharon Greenwood explained, “We are going to approve the extra duty stipends on this agenda. But in the future, we have decided that an amount of the stipend needs to be pre-approved. All requests for the stipends need to have a date attached and we need to know what the duty was exactly.” This session was in response to a previous question asked by Leonard in an earlier meeting in which he asked for clarification on what extra duty is. The executive session outlined what qualifies as extra duty payable by stipend but that information was not shared in the regular session. The governing board approved extra duty stipends for Dr. James Donner, WHS principal and Denise Estudillo, federal programs director. Superintendent Kathryn Zanin addressed the board and encouraged them to send letters to Governor Doug Ducey to help secure funding for the district in the next school year. “We are funded based on our student count,” she said. “We need that to be flexible as we consider reopening as soon as Aug. 3. If we cannot count kids who are learning from home, or who are staying away from school for health reasons, we will lose some of that funding.” She also spoke about a survey that is available on the district website that asks parents their opinions on reopening in August. “So far, we have had a fairly good response to the survey. About 60 percent of parents are saying they are ready to send their kids back. We are, of course looking at all of the logistics in precautions that we will have to take to get our kids back to school.” The survey is available at www.wusd1.org. In other business, the governing board: * Approved the hiring of Jessica Gose as a paraprofessional at Jefferson School; David DeGroff, bus driver; and Luis Petet, maintenance personnel and substitute bus driver. * Approved the resignation of Austyn Mattox as a crossing guard at Jefferson Elementary School. * Approved the transfer of Dominique Alberry from paraprofessional to first grade teacher at Jefferson; Amanda Curnutte, paraprofessional to reading aide at Jefferson School; Allison Meritt, paraprofessional at Jefferson School to kindergarten teacher at Bonnie Brennan Elementary; Virginia Nichols, fifth grade teacher at Washington Elementary to academic coach; and Anthony Reynoso, high needs paraprofessional at Winslow Junior High to special education teacher at WHS. * Ratified vouchers in a routine procedure that allows the board to submit vouchers to the county superintendent between meetings. * Approved a memorandum of agreement between Navajo County and WUSD in a routine, annual procedure. The next meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board will be at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, in the district board room, located at 800 Apache Ave.
