The Winslow Unified School District Governing Board met last week and approved two major purchases for playground equipment at the elementary schools.
According to WUSD Business Manager Shirley Lomeli, funds for the purchase of the equipment will be provided by an ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grant from the federal government as part of COVID relief efforts. Jefferson Elementary School will receive $177,309 and Bonnie Brennan Elementary School will receive $194,300 in new playground equipment.
Lomeli said, “We have been working on this project for months. It is a response to a survey that was done on our website a few months ago, (where) people said that new equipment is something that is needed. Both schools will receive brand new playgrounds. The purchase also includes installation of the equipment.”
Superintendent Connie Gover provided an update on COVD-19 numbers in the district saying, “This week we have only six active cases. Which is to say, we don’t want anyone to contract this virus, but that is an improvement over the last time we met and had 35 active cases.”
She also reminded community members that Winslow High School offers Binex rapid testing in their health services office to students and staff of the Winslow school district.
The meeting also included a presentation from eighth grade students Aiden Roland and Alan Fredericks. The two demonstrated animations they created as part of a computer coding class they are taking. Both students showed prowess in the coding as well as an excitement to continue the instruction.
Winslow Junior High School Principal Deb Lopez said, “The opportunity for this class is provided by Amazon and a program we are part of that has all of our seventh grade students and a few of our eight graders taking part. It is exciting to watch them learn a skill that will obviously follow them in their lives.”
Governing Board President Al Leonard added, “Any time we can find something students want to do on their own time, we should nurture that. That is always a good thing.”
Lopez explained that she is hopeful that Amazon will continue providing the course in years to come.
In other business, the governing board:
* Adjourned to an executive session where the annual evaluation of the superintendent was conducted. No public discussion was had following the session and the board accepted the evaluation.
* Recognized employees of the month of December including Otis Lunsford, Gina Williams, Julie Thomas, Chuck Hodge, Marie Putman and Afton Foster.
* Ratified vouchers in a routine procedure that allows the board to submit vouchers to the Navajo County Superintendent between meetings.
* Approved the hiring of Amanda Tso as a paraprofessional at Jefferson Elementary.
* Approved Winslow Junior High basketball coaches Leroy Thomas, Darrin Mitchell, Tara Wilcox and Robina Villanueva.
* Approved a memorandum of understanding between Little Singer Community School and WUSD to allow special needs students to be evaluated and attend WUSD special needs classes.
* Heard the first reading of a policy that adds vacation accrual to transportation employee contracts.
The next meeting of the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 12, in the board meeting room, located at 800 N. Apache Ave.
