All Queen Creek Unified School District sites reopen Aug. 17 for in-person instruction, the Governing Board decided in a 4-1 vote. The decision came after about an hour of public comments from adults …
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All Queen Creek Unified School District sites reopen Aug. 17 for in-person instruction, the Governing Board decided in a 4-1 vote. The decision came after about an hour of public comments from adults and children.
“We’ve got to make this work and it’s going to take cooperation from everyone adhering to guidelines and everything else,” Board President Ken Brague said after the vote. “I don’t think there was one person who spoke tonight that was insincere about their feelings. I don’t think there was anyone who was misinformed or uneducated about their feelings and so I truly appreciate everyone who spoke tonight and that’s the result that we got.”
Voting yes at the Aug. 11 meeting were Board President Brague, Board Vice President Jennifer Revolt and board members Samantha Davis and Courtney Narancic. Board member Bill Schultz voted no.
“So, my thought is that I believe in the metrics, I know that the metrics are moving in the right direction. I think we should move in the direction of in-person, but I don’t think we should go 100%,” Mr. Schultz said. “I think we should slowly walk into this in case there is a surge. So that is the reason for my ‘nay,’” he said.
The vote was on considering the public health benchmarks, guidance from county health officials, community needs, available resources and a mitigation plan to determine whether in-person instruction may be made available on Aug. 17. That day is the earliest Arizona schools can go back to in-person learning due to concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, in coordination with Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman, had declared over the summer.
QCUSD students on Aug. 3 had begun an intermittent remote learning model of instruction led by teachers online via Google Classroom unless they had registered for Queen Creek Virtual Academy --- a long-term online learning model.
Public comment
Five adults not in favor of opening schools and five in favor were allowed three minutes each to speak at the meeting, Board President Brague said.
Queen Creek parent Lindsey Randall asked the school board to not reopen for in-person instruction.
“I’m pretty sure all of you want my daughter back in school in the worst way, but I am going say it’s not safe yet,” she said.
“I still have a lot of questions about what will happen if someone gets this. What do we do when one ... grandparent, one child dies? How will we all live with ourselves because we needed to get back to our lives?” Ms. Randall asked. “I just ask that we delay. September --- I prefer October. Not Monday.”
Queen Creek baseball coach Mikel Moreno asked that the board reopen the schools Aug. 17.
“To the people who are against returning --- obviously I’m for returning --- to the people against returning, you have a choice, you’re exercising that choice. Keep them home, right? If you want to stay home, stay home, that’s good,” he said.
“If your child thrives online, would you appreciate people coming in and saying ‘You’re a bad parent. Have your child come into a traditional school.’ Would you appreciate that? No, you wouldn’t. There’s a choice,” Coach Moreno said.
About 10 children were also allowed to speak; all were in favor of reopening schools.
School board members said they had received hundreds of e-mails from parents and community members about the COVID-19 pandemic and the reopening of schools, with some attacking board members instead of the issue.
Prior to the vote on reopening schools, discussion and consideration of COVID-19 safety plans was a topic of an Aug. 11 closed-door executive session of the QCUSD Governing Board.
Dr. Perry Berry, QCUSD superintendent, said school officials and the board discussed school safety during the executive session.
“As you know, we had an executive session today devoted to safety-related issues related to COVID-19; and then we had a study session. In that study session, our staff took you through the county-wide benchmark data,” Dr. Berry said. “The discussion that is before you, we’ve presented our mitigation plan --- it has several categories including things such as facial coverings, positive-test protocols; it has items such as screening protocols, cleaning, sanitation,” he said.
COVID-19 items in regular session
Other items pertaining to COVID-19 were approved Aug. 11 by the QCUSD Governing Board. They included:
Arizona Schools Risk Retention Trust COVID-19 insurance for the 2020-21 fiscal year, approved in a 5-0 vote. COVID-19 insurance options were approved by the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust at their board meeting on Aug. 4, according to the agenda. The approved quote outlines the endorsement option at a cost of $75,000 for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Deductibles for the district with this endorsement are as follows: $0 per occurrence with a signed parent waiver of liability and assumption of risk; $10,000 per occurrence with a signed parent acknowledgment and disclosure; and, $20,000 if neither of these documents is in place, it states.
A memorandum of understanding between Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and QCUSD was approved 5-0 in a consent agenda with other items, for electronic/digital recording during COVID-19. QCUSD has several items throughout the year that require recording ranging from land donations to deeds to rooftop donations. Electronic recording expedites the process and eliminates the need for employee travel and time to complete these tasks, according to the agenda.
A private day school exempt list was approved 5-0 in a consent agenda with other items. The Arizona Department of Education’s most current list of providers of private day school is only approved through Aug. 14, according to the agenda. The ADE is in the process of updating its private day exempt list. In order to provide students with continuity of learning, procurement is bringing these approvals to the Governing Board in the event the ADE does not update their private day exempt list by Aug. 14. Many private day schools on the current school year 2020-21 exempt list are at-capacity due to COVID-19, thus creating a need for emergency procurement measures, the agenda states.
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987.
Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows
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