USD 457 Board of Education Meeting July 27, 2020
USD 457
The USD 457 Board of Education met Monday, July 27th, during a regularly scheduled meeting.
The Board of Education conducted its meeting in the Garden City High School auditorium. The meeting was held at the high school due to the possibility of more people from the community wanting to attend the meeting. The meeting was being conducted with social distancing protocols to make sure the public, Board members, and school staff involved in the meeting were safe.
The Board was presented the school district plan for the 2020-2021 school year. There were 18 advisory committees that looked at various aspects of Instruction and Operations to help develop contingency plans for our students and staff should we have a resurgence of the virus in our community. The contingency plan for the 2020-21 school year will prepare for three different educational options allowing us to move into different learning environments with little to no downtime. The first is On-Site Learning in which students will learn in the traditional classroom setting. The second is Remote Learning where learning occurs at home with remote instruction and support provided by teachers and staff. The third is Blended Learning which will combine in-person and remote learning. All learning settings will follow protocols set by state and county directives, as well as district safety standards. The ultimate goal is to provide a quality education in the safest environment for both students and staff.
The Board voted to push back the start of school to Monday, August 31, 2020. There will be a morning session of school that day for elementary, fifth, seventh, ninth and tenth grades as well as students new to the district. The first day of school for all students will be Tuesday, September 1, 2020. The Board will vote on a school calendar on what the rest of the school year will look like at its July 30 meeting.
The Board was presented with a CARES Act Resource plan for the district. Early childhood would prepare and plan remote lessons as needed for levels five and six with hourly timesheets. Elementary schools would add an after-school program at each building that would model after Kansas Reading Roadmap. Approximately 60 students could be served at each building. The program would include literacy and math skills, and includes tutoring, enrichment, physical activity and a snack. Bussing would be included. The intermediate Centers would increase the after-school program with the same as elementary schools but would add bussing. The middle school would be determined after school starts, but would look at possible zero-hour activities that could include intervention and enrichment activities. The high school would determine after school starts and would look at overloads for credit recovery sessions, hourly wages for supervision and screenings prior to school.
The Board went through and made committee assignments on district committees for the 2020-2021 school year. The board discussed and approved the Classified Personnel Handbook and Administrator Personnel Handbook for the 2020-2021 school calendar. The Board also approved the Therapeutic Education Program Agreement between Compass Behavioral Health and the district for behavior health treatment and special education services for the 2020-21 school year.
The next meeting of the Board of Education will be Thursday, July 30, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. in the Garden City High School Auditorium, 2720 Buffalo Way Blvd.
