School Board hears input on use of face masks at school

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HURON – The Huron School Board of Education met Monday night at the Huron High School Auditorium with several members of the community in attendance.

The school board approved the 15 new hires and seven resignations, the contracts for board approval, having a sports medicine/physical therapy agreement with HRMC and open enrollment.

They also approved The Huron Chamber and Visitors Bureau use of one of the public buses for city-wide transportation during the State Fair (Sept. 37).

Superintendent Terry Nebelsick presented the Superintendent’s report, stating that staff orientation with new teachers was held Monday, giving them five extra days to catch up on school policy, and the following week working with the veteran staff.

Kelly Christopherson presented the Business Manager’s report. “On the construction, we still have it going on at the high school, CTE Center and middle school; they are nearing completion as this is the last full week of work for both of the projects. Next week the architect will be here early in the week to begin walk through and inspections.

That gives them two days to work on what the architect and engineers find, with the goal to be done by next Friday with 99% of it, with just some things held up,” said Christopherson. Some materials in the environment were on back order and won’t arrive until September, such as middle school lockers.

In old business, the pick up point resolutions with Iroquois and Wolsey-Wessington Schools for the 2020-2021 school year were approved.

Nebelsick encouraged the communities input.

“I want to make sure I do the best that I can to exhaust everything someone wants to say during the public meeting portion,” said Nebelsick.

Edits were reviewed for the back to school re-entry plan. While some were in favor of the face-coverings, stating they support the masks and would even have their student wear the masks when

in green stage, many members of the community were against.

In the green stage masks are not required. Other stages are Yellow, when masks are required and some classes may be closed, and Red, in which buildings are closed to students with distance learning to begin.

Some community members found the face-coverings to be controlling, and some asked how a student would handle their mental health problems, anxiety, claustrophobia, asthma, and other immune and respiratory problems.

The community was concerned that the teachers would have more policing to do on the students, making sure the students are wearing them correctly, and if the student would be distracted with them while trying to learn. Questions were asked how to know if a parent is disinfecting the masks, and if they were being disinfected correctly. Some members of the community urged the school board to allow face-covering use to be up to the parents to decide.

 While the district is still waiting on the arrival of the barricaded shields that will go around student desks, they are hoping, once in place, that the shields can give the district a better chance to reach level Green — or a lower possibility of spreading the COVID virus on campus.

Nebelsick stated the school principals are looking at strategies to make sure they are sensitive to the students and the anxiety wearing a face-covering may cause. They are trying to put together a safe corner, so that a child can go in the safe corner and take the mask off for a little bit if they are feeling apprehensive.

Most importantly, the schools have doubled the amount of playground area. They are going to reincorporate rocket slide park, which is across the street from Madison School, which will quadruple the area. The softball complexes will be available for Buchanan School.

Nebelsick explained the goal is to get the classes outside in the field and let them take their masks off and run and be free.

On the subject of distanced learning procedures for those who do not plan to come back to school right away, Nebelsick explained that if a child starts distanced learning, they can decide to come back to school at any point of the year.

But if the student were to start in school and then go to distanced learning, the student would have to wait until the quarter breaks to return, which are Oct. 23, Dec. 23, and March 5.

“I have no desire to take away from a parent’s decision of safety, they can still take their child out again but the re-entry would be at the end of the quarter,” said Nebelsick.

The next school board meeting will be held Monday, Aug. 24, at 5:30 p.m., at the IPC room on the second floor of the arena.