School boards review essential functions

LIND – School District Superintendent Don Vanderholm reviewed continuity of operations plans with Lind and Ritzville School Boards on Sept. 27.

The plan ensures primary, mission essential functions of the district continue to be performed in times of emergencies or other conditions that could disrupt school district operations, he said.

Currently, the most likely disruption are COVID-like illnesses or COVID-positive cases, which could result in a temporary school closure, and a switch to remote learning, he said.

The plan reads “conditions for determining a COVID-19 outbreak in schools are established by the Washington State Department of Health and Adams County Health Department. School Districts follow these guidelines for determining whether a classroom or school building meets the criteria for a COVID-19 outbreak. Similar to a SARS or Influenza outbreak, schools will temporarily close to allow for conditions to improve. In the case of COVID-19 the length of closure is 14 days.”

As of Sept. 27, Lind-Ritzville Schools had 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the last 14 days. According to Vanderholm, the district was tracking 131 instances of either COVID- like symptoms, close contact or confirmed cases, among students and staff, over the same period.

“It’s been OK,” Vanderholm said, “Schools are open. Keep going. Knock on wood and keep going, that’s our plan.”

In other business:

• Students representing the FFA Floriculture, Agricultural Communications and Environment and Natural Resources teams appeared before the boards to announce they had placed in thevTop 20 nationally in their respective FFA events and would be attending the National FFA Convention and Expo, in person, in Indianapolis at the end of October. The Past practice has been the school districts provide $500 - $700 of funding per student for the trip. Students asked for the same consideration this year.

• The boards approved six district policies including No. 2255 Alternative Learning Experience Program, No. 3112 Social Emotional Climate, No. 3241 Student Discipline, No. 3241F Discipline Matrix, No. 3241F2 District Continuum of Discipline Resources, No. 3250 Student Fines, Fees or Charges and Policy 6580 and Procedure 6580P – Continuity of Operations Plan.

• Also approved was the Career and Technical Education Action Plan and approval of the eSports ASB Club. eSports includes game titles Dota2 and Rocket League which are team based games and free of charge. It also includes Venture Valley Town and FIFA 22 an individual game for $85.22.

• Approval of the LGBTQ ASB Club was tabled for a month to clarify language in the proposal.