With School Starting Tomorrow, Neillsville's District Administrator Provides Final Reminders for Parents and Students
Monday, August 31st, 2020 -- 12:11 PM
-The first day of school is tomorrow for the Neillsville School District. I spoke with Neillsville District Administrator John Gaier as he provided one final reminder on what the start of the new school year will look like for Neillsville students.Question: “Could you reiterate, once again, what school is going to look like for kids when they return?”
Mr. Gaier: “When kids come back on Tuesday, we will have a lot of employees outside, greeting them and showing them which doors to enter. We are going to try to keep kids by building as separate as we possibly can. So, we’ll have special entries for the elementary kids, special entries for middle school kids and special entries for high school kids. Depending on whether they get off the bus on the north side of the building or get dropped off on the south side of the building, we’ll have a number of people around directing kids and families on where their kids should enter the buildings. And we also would appreciate the fact that parents allow us to get the kids in the building without coming in. Just as a safety precaution, we want to make sure that we reduce the exposure to our kids and staff as much as possible. So we would appreciate parents abiding by that. And if they have any questions, they can certainly call at any time and let us know what their questions are. So, I think that’s going to be important on that first day.”
“Also, our folks that will be outside greeting kids will be giving them facemasks. So, they will have those before they enter the building, so we’re excited about helping them with that. We will also have special delivery of facemasks and busing schedules on Monday. Our bus drivers are going to do a practice run of their routes on Monday and a part of that practice is going to be stopping at each home and delivering the masks for kids to wear on the bus right away on Tuesday and also what their bus schedule will look like. For the most part, for families that are having their kids bused, the country kids will probably be about 5-10 minutes earlier than they normally would be. And our city kids will be about 5 minutes or so later because we will drop off the country kids before we make another route to pick up the city kids because we are limited on how many kids we can have on the bus at one time. So, I appreciate our parents being cooperative about that and if they have any questions about that, certainly give us a call here at school as well. But look for our bus drivers coming around to their places on Monday and delivering bus schedules and masks for the kids.”
“One of the things we’ve talked about as a staff that is very important is on the first days back, we realize that kids normally have been out of school, maybe, two and half months or less if they come to summer school on a normal year. And here we are with kids being out of school almost 6 months. So, reintroducing kids back into school in a safe and healthy manner. Teaching them the new protocols that we have in place for mask wearing, for hand washing, for how we move throughout the building to reduce exposure, the number of times we will get kids outside so they can take a break from their masks is going to be important. And also, making sure that we are greeting every child and making them feel comfortable being here. We know that the learning will be a little bit delayed. But what we want to make sure of, more than anything, is the emotional health of our kids as they return. Especially when school will look different than it normally does during this time.”
“But all of these protocols are put in place because we want to make sure that kids stay safe, that the school can stay open and that we can systematically make sure that we can continue to add time to the school week and get kids back here 5 days a week as soon as we can and get things back to normal as soon as we can.”
Question: “A couple other things that I would like to reiterate as well, is the week is going to look a little different for a while for students and students will mainly be staying in their classroom during the day. Is that correct?”
Mr. Gaier: “That is true for grades 4K-6th. Our 4K kids will be on a two day a week, all day schedule. So, we’ll have a Monday/Wednesday group and a Tuesday/Thursday group of kids that come in. For our 5-year-old kindergarteners through 6th grade, those kids will be in 4 days a week, Monday-Thursday. Friday will be a cleaning day for us. We can isolate those kids, for the most part, in their classrooms without intermingling too much with kids in other classes. In grades 7-12, we have divided up into two cohorts, a Monday/Wednesday group and a Tuesday/Thursday group. And the reason that we have to do that is because there is much more movement between classes in grades 7-12. And in order to keep kids from being overly exposed, we want to make sure that we can cut that number, basically, in half each day so there is less exposure. And then the days they are not attending, they will have remote practice work. And depending on the grade level, the amount of time they’ll have to spend on that will differ a little bit. But we want to make sure that kids still have the ability to continue to learn during those times.”
“It’s important to know that we want to get kids back in here more full time as much as we can. For some of our higher needs kids, we will be having those kids all back in 4 days a week regardless of grade level. But we will do that as safely as we possibly can and keeping them from being exposed or providing exposure to anyone else as much as we possibly can. So, we’ve tried to take every safety protocol we possibly can, while still being open as we move through these things.”
“Now, it’s important to know that in the first two weeks of September, we lose Mondays both of those first two weeks. So, we will make an adjustment in those first two weeks to actually be going Tuesday-Friday instead of Monday-Thursday. So, the first two weeks will be Tuesday-Friday, which means our Monday/Wednesday group will actually be Wednesday/Friday on those first two weeks. And our Tuesday/Thursday groups would obviously stay the same. Our 5K-6th grade kids, that are coming 4 days a week, their 4 days would be Tuesday-Friday those first two weeks and then Monday-Thursday after that.”
Question: “We’ve mentioned this before, but with all of these precautions, the ultimate goal of that is to get the district open and keep the district open and keep kids in school and learning. But has it been discussed between administration and staff regarding a threshold in case there is an exposure at the district? Would the whole district need to shut down if one or two kids were to be infected with the virus or perhaps just a certain grade level? Has that been discussed by the district?”
Mr. Gaier: “It sure has. And we’ve worked very closely with Clark County Health and the Department of Health Service at the state level. And I have to give a real shout out to Brittany Mews and the Clark County Health Department for all of the work they’ve done to help us through this. If we do have an exposure here, we will go through the contact tracing with the county health department. Again, by being able to isolate kids and not intermingle, based on their close contact investigation, we don’t believe we would have to shut down the entire building. We can isolate that to certain areas. And they have given us the protocols to follow to do that, so if we do have a positive test, we will work directly with them. They will go through the close contact tracing and we will follow their guidance with that. So, we have all kinds of plans in place to address anything that might happen here and try to do it without ever impacting the entire district if there’s an isolated incident.”
“I know that there have been a couple districts already that have had in-services like we have had this past week. And there have been a few districts, already, with just staff that have tested positive and I know they’re having to delay the openings already. So, we know this is a tremendous challenge for districts. And I hope that people are patient and understanding and realizing that, first and foremost, the safety of our kids and staff, and the families that are kids and staff live with, are our highest priority as we go through this planning process. We know that at some point we will get beyond this whole COVID-19 thing and get back to normal. And hopefully sooner than later. But until then, I think patience is going to be our virtue. I know people are getting tired of it. I’m tired of it. But being tired of it doesn’t make it go away. So, we’ve got to do our due diligence to make sure everybody stays safe. And still be able to get kids in school where we know they have their greatest chance of being healthy and successful. So, we are constantly working on that all the time.”
Question: “Anything else you’d like our listeners to know about?”
Mr. Gaier: “I know a lot of people are interested in athletics and what’s going to happen to the fall sports season. The WIAA has offered a fall sports season and a modified fall sports season if you want to try and do it in the springtime. We have worked with our conference, the Cloverbelt Conference. And the Cloverbelt Conference is recommending that we try to start fall sports and see if we can get through the fall sports season in the fall. So, that will be going to our board of education at a meeting on Monday, August 31st, and they will vote on having that fall sports season in the fall or moving it to the spring. And, again, we are working with the conference on that and their recommendation is to start in the fall, which means cross country has already started their practices. But football and volleyball would then start on September 7th and we’d have a modified schedule of games and opportunities for our kids and, hopefully, get safely through those seasons. So, that will be on the board agenda for Monday night.”
“And also, Monday night will be our Annual Meeting. So, anyone interested in the budget process and what we’re looking forward to in 2021, as far as the business portion of the district, they are certainly welcome in the Multimedia Room on the 31st at 7pm.”
Question: “Again, thank you for speaking with me.”
Mr. Gaier: “We certainly appreciate your support and WCCN’s support in all of this and helping get the message out. And, again, I know that this is a frustrating thing for all of us, but I ask for everyone’s patience and ask that any one who has any questions at all, call directly here and we will do everything we can to answer those questions and address those issues.”
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.