The Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School Board made a few changes to its Return-to-School plan during a meeting Monday.
The amended plan has all students in preschool and grades K-9 back in the buildings in-person by Jan. 28, with the older students, grades 10-12, back to in-person school on Feb. 9. (The older students are currently attending in a hybrid model of two days per week in-person, two days distance learning.)
School administrators (after hearing from their own advisory council) originally recommended holding off on having seventh- through ninth-graders full-time in-person until Feb. 8, but input from the state department of education’s regional council persuaded school officials to allow junior high students to return earlier. (Elementary students are already back in classrooms full-time.)
According to charts Superintendent Nels Onstad showed the board, the primary reason ACGC students can return to school buildings is a drastic reduction in the number of people in Meeker and Kandiyohi counties who are experiencing active cases of COVID-19. The number of active cases among residents of the ACGC ZIP codes has also dropped dramatically from the peak in November and early December.
Prior to the board ordering students home for distance learning, more than 100 ACGC students and 10 staff members were quarantined due to exposure to the virus. It had become challenging and hazardous to continue to conduct in-person school under such circumstances, Onstad indicated.
Since then, school officials have communicated regularly with the District Advisory Council, consisting of representatives from ACGC parents, teachers, support staff, local businesses and the administrative team. Onstad said that almost everyone desires students back in classrooms, but it has been challenging to make the accommodations necessary to do so. The rapidly changing science of how to deal with the virus, Onstad said, has forced the DAC and staff to experience much fluctuation in how to best slow the disease’s spread.
“Any announcement from the state creates an upset apple cart,” he said. “We joke about the changes, but it’s growing weary.”
Although the highly contagious virus had slowed its spread in the ACGC community by mid-January, it has not disappeared. Failure to comply with health protocols could allow the virus to roar back.
“How we do this remains complicated,” Onstad said. “It is nobody’s fault: It is the pandemic’s fault.”
He told the board about mental health services available to school staff who struggle with the situation. He closed by stating that, whether a person believes in wearing a mask or not, “wearing masks is needed to get us back together.”
The staggered re-opening of the schools means that the daily schedule will need to be adjusted until the transition is complete. Currently, teachers need time to connect with their distance learners. A modified schedule is going into effect this week, with both buildings back to their pre-COVID schedules by Feb. 9.
“The kids really want to be back,” concluded board member Sarah Blom.
The board heard more details about how the district is coping with the situation in reports from PreK-4 Principal Kodi Goracke and Middle/High School Principal Robin Wall. Activities Director Marj Mauer briefed the board on how the district is handling community education, school sports and other activities.
Students have been practicing and engaging in competition in some sports, but spectators had not, as of the Jan. 25 board meeting, been allowed to be present. Mauer described how some spectators might be allowed to watch in-person in the near future. (Many games and meets are being live-streamed, however.)
There have also been changes in how transportation and the school lunch program are being conducted.
Distance learning attendance the past two months had been good, principals reported, but some students have been falling behind in their work. Wall is arranging for a structured credit recovery program in her building on Wednesday afternoons, to help students catch up to their potential. In addition, a few students, 28 in the high school and several in the elementary grades, are choosing to continue in distance learning for a while longer.
Onstad said that a few teachers have driven out of town and obtained a COVID-19 vaccine; he anticipates that more vaccine will be available soon. Testing is being offered to district staff every two weeks.
