COVID causes staffing concerns at Colby K-12
With many high school staff members out last week due to COVID-19 quarantines, superintendent Steve Kolden told the school board Monday that he may at some point have to exercise his right to temporarily suspend in-person classes if not enough teachers are available.
During a monthly review of COVID protocols, Kolden said a recent spike in staff outages at the high school raised questions about when a school should switch to all-online instruction.
“I can run a school with just four students,” he said. “I can’t bring in 300 students with four teachers.”
Kolden said he had to pull teachers from other grade levels, forcing them to give up their prep times, in order to fill the gaps at the high school last week. If the number of absent staff members had increased much more, he said he would have had to suspend in-person classes.
The superintendent already has this power, he said, under a policy that enables him to cancel classes “for the protection of the health and safety of students and staff.” This policy is normally employed during severe weather events and other emergencies.
Looking at student numbers, 83 students across the district were quarantined as of Monday, including 28 at the elementary, 34 at the middle school and 21 at the high school.
Under a policy proposed by Kolden but not adopted by the board, none of these numbers would justify a mask mandate outside of classroom settings. On Monday, the board decided to keep in place a policy adopted in September that requires masks in all classrooms, regardless of how many COVID cases and quarantines there are at any given school.
Board member Dave Decker said continuing to require masks in classrooms is minimizing the number of students who need to be quarantined because they are considered “close contacts.”
Without masks on, anyone who has been within six feet of a positive COVID case for 15 minutes or more is deemed to be a close contact who needs to be quarantined. When masks are worn, that distance shrinks to three feet of separation.
Decker pointed out that the district had 31 COVID cases back in September — before masks were required in classes — and 241 students had to be quarantined as close contacts. Now, there are another 31 active cases and only 83 close contact quarantines.
If the mask mandate had been in place in September, Decker said 158 students may not have had to quarantine.
“I’m not here to argue whether masks prevent COVID-19 or not, but they are keeping our kids in classrooms,” he said.
Decker said the district needs to continue following the guidelines established by the Clark County Health Department and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services in order to keep kids in school.
“We failed those students two months ago,” he said. “Today we’re keeping them in class.”
_ The board approved a request from the consolidation study team to pay $8,000 to Baird, Inc. for a longterm financial forecast of a consolidated Colby-Abbotsford school district. The study will take eight to 10 weeks to complete and provide information on future tax levies and mil rates, consolidation aid, and other budget projections.
_ A board commendation was presented to members of the girls cross-country team, who won the conference title for the fourth year in a row and qualified for state. Coach Bryon Graun said they were a good group of runners to coach, and he never had to worry about them staying on task, even when he was out on quarantine. He also noted that their combined grade-point average of 3.6 earned them all-state academic honors.
_ Kolden said state report cards will be released later this week, providing an evaluation based on standardized test scores and other factors.
“Our test scores are going to be down this year,” he said. “I’m not sure if that’s COVID-related or classroom-related.”
Kolden also noted that Wisconsin saw a 771 percent increase in the number of parents opting their students out of standardized tests last school year.
_ The board approved an out-of-state travel request for the Colby Coalition show choir and high school band to travel to Orlando, Fla., March 8-14, 2022, for a Disney performance workshop and FAME competition.
_ The board approved the hiring of Diane Rarick as the school nurse, Amy Fleury as a middle school special education aide; Kevin Koehler as the Skills USA advisor and Jhalexa Vazquez Garcia as a high school English Language Learners aide.
_ The board accepted a $1,000 donation from Colby Pullers Club to the Colby Elementary for health and hunger initiatives and a welder from Meyer Equipment, valued at $4,700.
