By Ashley McCarty
The Adams County Ohio Valley School District Board of Education met on Oct. 27 to announce the closure of a West Union High School wing, discuss the winter sports seasons, and financial outlook in case of district closure.
A motion by Board Member Judy Campbell to approve the agenda was seconded by Board Member Gay Shipley.
A motion by Board Member David Riley to approve the purchase of grade 7-11 Social Studies Textbooks at $150,000 was seconded by Board Member Richard Davis, the board agreed.
The $11,000 shipping cost and payment terms will be negotiated by Curriculum Coordinator Tad Mitchell.
“Over the weekend, on Saturday, when I was notified of a situation where we had a staff member that had tested positive for COVID-19. As would be the practice, you have to [do contact tracing] and through that tracing there were several students that would have been deemed to have been in close contact with this teacher. That coupled with some staff members, about I believe seven of them that had to be quarantined due to contact, the decision was made by me yesterday to just go ahead and shut down the 7th and 8th grade wing at West Union High School,” said ACOVSD Superintendent Richard Seas.
The decision was made after consulting Health Commissioner Dr. William Hablitzel. The students will be out from Oct. 27 to Nov. 5, coming back to school on Friday, Nov. 6. Students will be doing online instruction during the duration of wing closure. Extensive cleaning will be done in the wing during this time.
“Of course, there are other individual situations that have popped up throughout the district, but really overall [we’re] still doing well. We’ve yet, to my knowledge, have any student through tracing that has transmitted it through the school. So, everything is, again, from the outside,” said Seas
At the last board meeting, the possibility of PeeWee Basketball was discussed.
“We looked into that, and we just don’t have a gym available to do that. We don’t have the small gyms, they’re completely taken up with the cafeteria tables. So, that decision was made,” said Seas.
Seas said Mitchell was currently in a meeting with the Southern Hills Athletic Conference to finalize procedures for the winter sports season.
“As soon as we know what the SHAC board decides, what they vote on, we’ll get that to the board and we’ll get that to the public, because I know that’s important,” said Seas.
Seating will also be limited at the games, though it is not certain how much it will be limited.
“Tickets are a big issue. You can buy your tickets online. It’s really easy to do, but I know in the upcoming season, the conference is talking about using a company [which would raise the price]. Our tickets are $5, when you use this company, the tickets are going to cost more, but it’s easier. You don’t have to have the exchange of money, people selling tickets, keeping track of it,” said Seas.
Board member Riley said a lot of other districts are doing that.
“There’s a cost to doing that business. So understand, a $5 ticket may end up costing you $6.50,” said Seas.
Later in the meeting, Mitchell returned to divulge the information from the SHAC meeting.
“The ticket sales for the winter sporting events, which would be basketball, was going to be divided by 25 percent for the visiting team, and 75 percent for the home team,” said Mitchell.
Upon further discussion, every participant will get two tickets for an away game for boys games, and away girls will get four tickets.
“However, those schools may be clearing the gym after the reserve game, and when you buy that ticket you will have to designate whether it’s a reserve ticket or a varsity ticket, and the school has to denote that. So, the athletic directors will be sending a roster to — let’s say Whiteoak — and if your kid is on reserve, you only have the opportunity to buy reserve tickets. You will not have the opportunity to buy a varsity ticket,” said Mitchell.
Under that scenario, 100 fans will have an opportunity to go.
“Some of them will only get to watch one game, but at least we’ll have an opportunity for those kids to have a couple representatives in the stands. At home, everybody will receive the four tickets, and then if we have any left for the schools, we will determine how those will be disbursed among the participants,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell said they will also be using the online purchasing for the tickets.
“The cost for that was $1.44, rather than having people pay $6.44 for a ticket, they just went ahead and said we’ll set the price at $6. So, we would actually be making $4.56 per ticket, rather than the $5, but we’re not selling children’s tickets so we’ll make up some on that end. We just thought that was better for those that had been involved, and those who go to a lot of games; they’re only paying $1 more per ticket rather than $1.44,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell said there will be different start times if the schools plan on clearing the gyms; the start times will be 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., to allow schools to disinfect gyms and other things. If they do not plan on clearing gyms, games will start normally right after reserve games.
In the previous board meeting, Seas discussed essential employees; he would enunciate on the topic further.
“What is essential? What is an essential employee? I know I talked about that last time. What seems to be hard for people to understand — although I don’t make the rules, I just follow them — is when somebody has a quarantine order [dropped on them], and [they’re told to quarantine for 14 days]. What’s hard for people to understand — and that’s why it’s all [based on] situation — is that you can come to work, but you can’t go down to Walmart. When you come to work, you have to wear a mask, you have to [social] distance, you’ve got to be safe at all times,” said Seas.
Seas posed what the enforcement was for a quarantine order.
“When you’re given a quarantine order, it’s really based upon what you do with that order. How you protect your family, how you protect anybody else you’re around, any community members that you’re around. Some people have a more healthy fear of COVID-19 than others, that’s just the reality. Some people have yet to totally buy into it. So, we’ve been dealing with what is an essential person on an individual basis? In the particular case that we just dealt with, there’s too much contact. There’s too much intermixing to say that in those particular situations — everybody’s essential. We know that. Everybody that works here is essential, but to bring them into work and expose them to other people, if it’s too risky we just don’t do it,” said Seas.
It was reported there was one new student case at Peebles Elementary and 18 students quarantined.
“I’ve only had one teacher come back in that was, based on the way the circumstances were, that reported back in as essential. I think most of the teachers that have been either in contact, or had COVID-19 are at home. They’re not here,” said Seas.
Seas said in most cases except for the one mentioned, no teachers have come back.
“The essential conversation has gotten people worked up. You’re slapped with a quarantine order, but you can come to work, and you know what, we are essential. We have to have our teachers in here to keep our grade levels and classrooms going. We have substitutes, but they don’t want to come in and work because of fear of COVID-19,” said Seas.
Seas said the upcoming flu season would also complicate things.
The board began talking about “moving ahead,” endeavoring to not slow down their progression because of COVID-19. Some topics discussed were Social Emotional Learning and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, which both have different techniques in supporting children both emotionally and academically. The board also reflected on the unanticipated benefits and new perspectives gained during COVID-19.
Safety Director Mike Parker reported that attendance percentages were good. There are currently 439 students online out of the over 600 online enrollments at the beginning of the year.
Over 140 of those online students are on the cusp of being filed upon for truancy, including parents.
Parker reported on the COVID-19 trends since its onset; on April 30, there were only four cases in the county.
“Jump to June 12, there’s 12 cases in the county. July 2, 21 cases, July 24, 40, it doubled. The 31st, there was 54 cases. August 7, 60 cases, August 14, 69 cases, August 21, 83 cases. So, just drawing a line right there, that’s pretty much when we started coming back to school,” said Parker.
As of Oct. 23, there are 212 confirmed cases in the county, with 29 of them being active.
“As of Oct. 23, there were 509 people that had successfully completed the quarantine stages of the tracing; however, that’s a week ago. I do know, as of yesterday, there were 13 positive cases just yesterday alone,” said Parker.
Parker reported he and representatives from Manchester Local Schools and Adams County Christian School had a meeting at the health department, and by the end of that meeting, nine more cases were reported.
“Our numbers are climbing, and ultimately it’s affecting our schools right now,” said Parker.
“Implications if we have a future shutdown: it will all depend on what the governor’s order says, and whether he cuts any Department of Education budget to us. If we’re held harmless, as to budget cuts and his order was like he ordered in March of last year, that all employees shall be held harmless, we have to continue as is. If his order does not say everybody’s held harmless, and if they do cut our Department of Education budget, which would flow through to our foundations, we would have to look at ways to trim operational costs. Which, I won’t say it would lead to, but everything would have to be on the table, including layoffs as an option. It just depends on if our funding is cut, or if our funding is held harmless,” said Treasurer Brian Switzer.
Switzer said Mitch McConnell has recessed the Senate, therefore no action will be taken on the stimulus bill until the lame-duck session reconvenes after the election.
“Which will probably be the first week of December. So, the earliest we’d see federal money — January, at this point? There are rumors at the state level. The state still has $400 million of COVID-19 money from the federal government that it has not allocated to the state government yet. Our professional groups, [Ohio School Boards Association], [Ohio Association of School Business Officials], [Buckeye Association of School Administrators], everybody has asked us to contact and make suggestions to our delegates, our legislatures, our advocates as to how we would suggest they use that money. Several people have, I’ve sent in an example of our cleaning, I said that just because COVID-19 funding ends Dec. 30, school goes until at least May 28 for us. We still need additional cleaning supplies and labor to clean with. Whether they view that as an option, who knows, but I did speak up for us. I do think politically, state wise, we will receive more money,” said Switzer.
Federal government wise, depends on who wins the election, he said.
“We’ll see something, but how much, I don’t know, but again, federal money won’t come through until the first of the year,” said Switzer.
Switzer said they’ll have a few bumps down the road, but hopefully, they’ll keep rolling.
With no more business before the board, the meeting was adjourned.
Board meeting minutes will be approved by the board at the next meeting, subject to revisions.