By L. Parsons The Winslow Unified School District Governing Board met last week for the last time with President Sharon Greenwood at the helm. Prior to the regular meeting, a public hearing was held in which business manager Shirley Lomeli presented the revised budget for the 2020-21 school year. “As required by the state, I have to do a revised budget by Dec. 15 if my general budget limit is over one percent changed from the time that I actually have done my budget. The State of Arizona asked me to reduce my budget by $810,709. Basically, the main reason for this is the reduction in student count. Since the beginning of our school year, we have lost 163 students and so we have had to adjust our budget accordingly. We earn $4,359 per student so when you multiply that by 163, it comes to $710,606 so it is a huge impact to our district for the current school year.” The revised budget was accepted unanimously by the governing board during the subsequent regular meeting. Superintendent Kathryn Zanin gave an update on winter sports protocols and precautions being taken due to COVID-19. “One of the key pieces in sports, you’ll notice, is the safety checklist. Every time a child steps foot either at practice or a game, coaches are mandated to go through this checklist. They take the temperature of the athlete and ask a series of questions about fever, cough, sore throat or close contact with someone with COVID. There are risks with any kind of sports and our students and parents sign a waiver acknowledging that they are taking risks.” The Arizona Interscholastic Association has outlined protocols specifically for basketball and wrestling as previously reported in The Tribune. Those can be found at www.aiaonline.org. Zanin also addressed concerns of district parents and staff regarding COVID-19. She began by referring to the COVID-19 dashboard that is part of the district website, which reflects reported positive cases of the virus at each district site. Zanin said, “Some community members have mentioned that they couldn’t find the dashboard, so we put an extra link on the website. Now there are two places to find it, under ‘quick links’ and under ‘resources.’” She continued, “We are posting every day when we have any information and I will tell you we are getting this information before the county has this information. Families are proactive and making us aware when their children or employee has tested positive. Also with our rapid testing, we are able to identify cases and report those to the county. We are far ahead of the curve in letting our parents know exactly how many active cases we have. Any time we have an active case, we quarantine the entire family. “If it happens to be within a school, we are quarantining anyone with close contact. So again, we are doing every step to keep our schools safe. I realize that we have had at least one case every day but at the same time, the schools are still safer than the community or their own home. I keep a master record of all of the COVID cases and the outcomes. In the majority of them, it’s parents that tested positive, family tested positive, the whole family is quarantined because someone tested positive, grandma, mom, dad have all tested positive. So really, the COVID cases are happening more in the home than at school. We have all the safety precautions in place to keep everyone safe. We are taking this very, very serious.” Zanin added, “I understand and I recognize that there is a group of community members who believe with all of their heart that our schools should be closed. We have another group that believes they should be open. When a decision is made, it is made with an entire cabinet of decision makers. We know that students learn best when they’re in person. We know it is difficult when someone contracts COVID and it does impact all of us. We provide the option, again, as family members, you have the option of in-person or online and we support that.” She explained that Arizona laws mandate the district keep services available 180 days a year. It is mandatory that special needs students have access to a certain amount of service minutes. She continued, “We have to remain open for our special education students, our students in the foster care program and our students that are English language learners. Though I realize that there are some that truly believe our schools should be closed, it’s just not possible at this time. But we are looking at other mitigating factors that we may be able to do to be able to compensate for that. As those decisions are made, we will be bringing those forward.” During the meeting, the governing board accepted the retirement of Desiree Bengson, a first grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary School, who was recognized with praise for her more than 30 years on the job. Also retiring is Theresa Pacheco, a paraprofessional at Washington Elementary School. Pacheco has been a part of the district for more than 25 years. Winslow High School math teacher Owen Kerr and athletic secretary/bookkeeper Janice Childers tendered their resignations and Arian Huerta, previously working as the secretary at Washington Elementary School will take over for Childers. In other business, the governing board: Ratified vouchers in a routine procedure allowing the board to submit vouchers to the county superintendent between meetings. * Approved the hiring at Winslow High School of Venton Nelson, Jim Maclean, Stephanie Nelson and James Richens, each as boys basketball coaches; Jerron Jordan, Erick Petronovich, Janeen Barton and Jennifer Yazzie, each as girls basketball coaches; and Scott Larsen, Tom Breeze and Joseph Larsen, each as wrestling coaches. * Approved the hiring at Winslow Junior High School of Tara Wilcox and Lynne Sawyer, each as girls basketball coaches; Anthony Reynoso and Darrin Mitchell, each as boys basketball coaches. * Approved an agreement between Coconino County and WUSD for provisions of special education services. * Designated Allen Leonard as chairperson to open the Jan. 6 governing board meeting in which officers will be elected. * Heard a report from Jefferson Elementary School principal and head of the district strategic planning team Amber Martinez. In her report, Martinez explained a team had been formed and is working on writing a strategic plan for the district. The next meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board will be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 6, in the board training room, located at 800 N. Apache Ave.
