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Photo by Wanda Hanson
The Houston School Board reviewed the changes to the school’s health and safety measures at their regular meeting October 7, 2021. Changes to the measures included no longer requiring siblings of a positive student to stay home as well as long as they have no symptoms. Positive individuals still must remain at home for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms or testing positive; symptoms must have improved and the individual must have been fever free for 24 hours before returning to school.
Individuals who were close contacts of a positive case in school now have three options: they may choose to wear a mask for 10 days at school (same time as a quarantine), they may take a Covid test after five days and return without a mask with a negative PCR test result on the sixth day, or they may choose to stay home for 10 days. If a student is a close contact to a positive case in their household, they still will need to quarantine for 14 days. Students who choose to stay at home to quarantine will still be allowed to practice any indoor activities as long as they remain masked during that time.
It was emphasized that this plan is reviewed often and remains ever fluid and subject to change as necessary.
Several citizens once again attended the meeting. None had addressed the board during the public comment portion of the meeting. Apparently, some people do not understand that while the meeting is open to the public, they may only speak during the public comment period of the meeting. The rest of the meeting is intended for the board to speak and discuss the items on the agenda. The public is encouraged to review the agenda online before a meeting and bring up their concerns during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting.
HVAC project
The board accepted the bid from Olympic Builders General Contractors, Inc. for HVAC improvements to the high school building. This will include kitchen upgrades and reinsulation of the chilled water pipe in the tunnels. The project has an estimated total budget of $2,100,000. Asbestos abatement and $194,000 from ESSER II funding will be applied to the expense.
Other business
In other business, Superintendent Mary Morem shared that a camera will be installed this Thursday in the high school gym so home basketball games can be streamed online. The second camera will be installed in the elementary gym so the school play and games played at the elementary can also be streamed. The football field doesn’t have WiFi available; in order to stream from there, an additional $4,500 would need to be invested. Since the season is nearly done, the board decided to look at other options for streaming football games next year.
November 18, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. was chosen for the feedback session on the World’s Best Workforce. The document must be submitted by December 5.
Superintendent Morem informed the board that she was waiting on another bid before sharing the bids on a new bus for the school with the board. She was optimistic that the cost might be lower than last year, but cautioned that the cost would likely go up after the first of the year.
The board agreed to the addition of a district office administrator assistant. This position will be full-time; currently a variety of people are doing portions of the duties that will be assigned to the assistant.
Several donations from the community were accepted by the board including: $300 from Legion Post 423 for Storey State Band; $500 from Legion Auxiliary for the D.C. trip; $410 from Huhner Golf Tournament for HHS Football; $300 from the Houston Lions for Storey State Band; $500 from Houston Athletic Boosters for an athletic speaker; $50 from Gene Lundberg Memorial for HHS Football and classroom supplies from Thrivent Financial. The board expressed sincere appreciation of all the donations and support.
The next Houston School Board meeting will be October 21, at 6 p.m. in the high school media center and will be streamed online. The public is welcome to attend.
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