By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
School Board members expressed confidence in the School District reopening plan at the board meeting Wednesday night.
“Mr. Holst and I were in the buildings Monday and you can see all these procedures that are implemented and in place and it’s pretty impressive,” board chair Amy Morrison said. John Holst is the superintendent of the school district.
“It was just great to be in the building and see all the staff and feel all the energy and the excitement,” Morrison added. Local schools are set to open on August 27.
Board member Paul Rioux said he’d been anxious about the reopening, but was impressed by the procedures he’s seen.
“When we started this process I had as much anxiety about it as any of you ... but I can’t even express how impressed I am,” Rioux said.
The district published its Smart Start school reopening plan last month. The full plan is available on the district website, sitkaschools.org.
The plan categorizes risk in tiered and color-coded levels: green, yellow and red.
The district determines risk level by assessing how many positive cases of the coronavirus have occurred in Sitka over a rolling two-week period.
Holst said there’s some flexibility in the risk assessment process.
“Those are not hard lines marked in the sand,” he told the board. “They are numbers and there will be a lot of discussion about what they mean ... I want to reassure you that we will not be making any decision about staying open or closing in any cavalier fashion.”
District officials say the current risk level is yellow, with nine positive tests for COVID-19 in Sitka over the past two weeks. A dozen or more cases in two weeks would raise the risk level to red, but Holst said that the number is not fixed, but rather dependent on other factors as well.
Holst stressed in a later interview that a decision to change risk levels would involve input from school administrators, health professionals, and others.
“The trend is going to matter. If the trend is looking like this is upward, that is going to make a big difference,” he said.
Holst noted at the board meeting a possible complication regarding school enrollment and funding.
“The enrollments all over the state are coming in low,” he said. “I don’t know if you saw the big news in Anchorage... it is an enormous number of kids that aren’t showing up. And the number of millions of dollars of revenue that that’s going to be is just frightening. We really don’t know about it ourselves. We do know that people have selected all three of our choices we have. The largest percentage obviously are going to be sending their kids to school, but we do have a sizable number of parents that have selected virtual,” Holst said.
The Anchorage Daily News reported Wednesday that the Anchorage School District faces a loss of up to $30.1 million this coming year, depending on how many students attend school.
The state public school foundation formula awards funds to school districts on the basis of Average Daily Attendance, with that figure set by a student census soon after school starts in the fall.
District Business Manager Cassee Olin said the projected school budget is based on a total enrollment of 1,186 students. Olin added that the official count period runs from September 28 to October 23.
Holst said he expects in-person school attendance to be lowest at the very start of the year.
“I would anticipate that as we start school, those numbers (of students not in school) are going to be at their high point,” he said. “We know kids, they like being around their peers. Within a month, I think we are going to see some of those kids drifting back to school... What is being done virtually needs to be the same that’s being done in the classroom, so that can be a sequenced move. We don’t want that to become an impediment.”
Turning to other matters, the board recognized the Pacific High School gardening class for the students’ work with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. The U.S. Forest Service honored both groups for their work.
“This is a really big deal, there aren’t many awards that are national that people get here. This recognition comes right from the top,” Holst said.
The board also passed on first reading a number of policies regarding public complaints, maintenance, and disciplinary actions.
Sitka schools open their doors to students for the first time since March on August 27. The School Board meets again September 2.
