UCS issues temporary mask mandate, suspends games for one week
News, Panther's Corner January 5, 2021
BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – Given the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases, Union County Board of Education moved to heighten virus precautions in the classroom with a mask mandate.
Students returned to class today, January 5, from winter break. Previously, the school encouraged masks but didn’t require face coverings for students. Now all students and teachers must wear a mask except for eating or drinking. Children with medical excuses will receive appropriate accommodations, such as a face shield.
Students exposed to COVID-19 must quarantine for 14 days, and those not following the COVID-19 protocols will be sent home. The school enhanced social distancing and meal mitigations when possible.
Additionally, the nine-week requirement for online learning was suspended until case numbers go back down. If a parent or guardian doesn’t feel comfortable sending their child to school, they can participate in online learning until a parent deems it safe. Parents and guardians against the mask policy were asked to keep their child at home until the old policies are reinstated.
The data following the black vertical line depicts the recent rise in quarantines and confirmed COVID-19 cases in the school. The orange dotted line = student quarantines. The red line = student positives. The black dotted line = staff quarantine. The black line = staff positives.
The board decided to cancel athletic events for the week of January 4 to 9. Practices will still take place. Each week the athletic department will decide the game schedule and cancellations. Once games resume, attendance will be limited with a mask requirement in place for fans. The school’s looking into livestreaming events.
Board members agreed that face-to-face instruction must continue until it’s no longer feasible for the system. The current UCS update placed 30 staff in quarantine or positive for COVID-19. If the situation doesn’t improve, the district could move to online-only learning.
Newest board member and Union General Hospital Chief Nursing Officer Julia Barnett stated that she views schools as a controlled environment. By keeping children in schools, it’s easier to manage their environments and contact trace.
Several schools districts in the Pioneer RESA opted to go online only for the foreseeable future, including Rabun, Banks, Gainesville, Hall Hart, Lumpkin, Madison, and White. Pickens County announced its decision to close for another week yesterday.
Union County discussed canceling games with schools that were online only but allowing athletic activities, citing that if the district is too sick to attend in-person classes, then should they be traveling to play sports.
https://youtu.be/7u1UR8L7s-cUnion County Schools gearing up for students’ return
Board of Education, News, Panther's Corner June 17, 2020
BLAIRSVILLE, Ga – Union County School System’s (UCS) exploring options for the 2020-2021 school year, so students and faculty can safely return to class – either in the building or online.
A more developed plan will be presented to the board of education in July pertaining to the school calendar and remote classroom possibilities for UCS students.
“We want to propose some calendar changes to you. However, we don’t want to lose any student days, and we don’t want to lose any teacher days. They’re just calendar changes,” Assistant Superintendent David Murphy explained.
For instance, the days leading up to Thanksgiving Break could become online learning days. The extra time at home would provide the custodial staff with additional time to sanitize the schools.
A socially distanced Pledge of Allegiance.
Murphy expanded on anticipated calendar changes, “Pretty much every month we have a long weekend built in different things. If we do an online learning day before or teacher workday and having that be done at home, that allows us a long weekend to re-sanitize the buildings. This allows us to deep clean the buildings once a month.”
On these long student weekends, the teachers could work from home as well. Since COVID-19, teachers proved that they could complete their job requirements outside of the school.
Board member Cynthia Odom asked how many days the custodial staff would need to “deep clean” the school. Two to three days would be ideal with hopefully only one day needed for off-site learning or workdays.
Facilities Director Patton confirmed that all the buildings are undergoing thorough summer cleaning, including deep stripping all the wax, shampooing the carpet, and sanitizing buses. All these efforts were done in-house too. UCS installed hand sanitizer dispensers in the buses for students to use.
Additionally, facilities held meetings about adding UV-lights to every classroom to detect and prevent COVID-19. Mobile UV lights spend eight minutes in a room to sanitize it. They’re also looking into placing iconic rods and UV lights in the air hangers to clean the air.
“We really need to have some clearer information as to what will be taking place,” added Murphy. “Governor’s orders keep changing, lightening the load. There’s a possibility of a resurgence. We don’t know but we would like to wait until July so that we have some more information under review.”
Online Classroom Option
Superintendent John Hill addressed the necessity of having an online classroom option for medically fragile students. UCS will send out a survey in the near future for parents, guardians, and students to fill out to gather interest and determine best practices.
“Normally, we would be real deep in scheduling at this point in time,” said Hill. “We’re kind of having to wait a little bit, our principles are, until we have hard numbers from our people that we serve here in the community. We need to hear from the people that we’re here to serve, what do you want? So, we’re committed to providing a solid option to those parents who want that option, and we’re hoping, praying, planning on a brick and mortar reopening. That is a huge asterisk disclaimer depending on the current situation.”
Superintendent John Hill stressed the importance of parental input for the next school year.
The survey will be released over email, social media, and the school’s website within the next 10 days.
“We’re here to serve the kids and will do what we have to, to serve our students,” Hill closed. “It’s really important we get participation in that survey, so we know how to allocate our services.”
Spending Resolution
The board also passed a spending resolution for July and August 2020 because UCS is waiting on the state to make its final decision concerning budget cuts. UCS hasn’t passed a new budget, and a resolution is necessary to pay the bills. Once passed, the school system can spend a twelfth of the expenditure budget for those months.
“I would like to tell the board that, of course, our goal during this time is to be as lean as possible and keep our expenditures as low as possible. With the uncertainty with the state budget cuts that our heading our way, one-twelfth is the max, but our goal is to come in as low as we can every month until we pass our budget,” Hill explained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4SyL5XJVNc