USD 489’s Board of Education met on Oct. 12 and discussed a variety of items. This was the first board meeting for Nuchelle Chance, who was elected to the vacant position of former board member Sophia Young.

The board recognized personnel changes. Among those changes were Jessica Roe, who was hired as the official contact tracer for K-12, Kendra Vaughn resigned as a GPS paraeducator, 2018 alumna Gabriela Taliaferro was hired as a special education paraeducator at Lincoln Elementary and Debbie Barnett will be retiring from her position of counseling secretary after 15 year of service to the district.

In other items, the USDA has extended the free meals for students until the end of the school year.

“This will mean that all kids, regardless of economic status, will receive school meals for free,” superintendent Ron Wilson said. “We did have an extension [of the free meal program] until the end of December. This will now take us to the end of the second semester.”

Wilson then presented updated COVID numbers for the district.

“As of today, we have three positive cases in the district,” Wilson said. “That’s three students and zero staff out of approximately 3,800 people, so that’s a pretty small positive rate.”

Despite the low positive case rate, the district has 155 students in quarantine and 12 staff members in quarantine.

Wilson then discussed the updated gaiting criteria for USD 489.

If in any one classroom has two or more students or staff in isolation (positive test result), the classroom will go remote for 14 days.

If any building has more than 1 percent of its total population in isolation, staff and parents will be notified about the potential of remote learning if cases increase. The building may move remote for a day to allow for additional sanitation measures.

If any building has more than 1.5 percent of its total population in isolation, risk will be assessed, and the building may move to remote learning for one to five days.

If any building has more than 2 percent of its total population in isolation, the building will be moved to remote learning for a minimum of five days.

For Hays High, one percent is 10 students, 1.5 percent is 15 students and 2 percent is 20 positive students.

“Right now, we feel like this really gives us some good information, which helps us make decisions about specific buildings in terms of cases,” Wilson said.

21afeyerherm@usd489.com