The White Salmon Valley School District welcomed two new board members at the Jan. 27 school board meeting. Pat Dempsey and Peter Harkema were sworn in last week, giving newcomers a majority as only two veteran board members currently sit on the board.
The board voted to keep Alan Reitz as chair and appointed Laurie Stanton as vice-chair. Board Member Tracy Rushing, appointed last year to the position, was selected to be the board’s legislative representative.
Pat Dempsey
Peter Harkema
Under Superintendent Sean McGeeney’s reporting for the monthly board meeting, he noted that the district’s enrollment figures has seen a slight uptick this month in full-time enrollment for a total 1,087 full time students, while the district budgeted for 1,113 students.
McGenney noted that the enrollment figures this month will be used by the state to allocate funding to the district.
McGeeney said the district’s budget is “right on track, right where we anticipated to be.”
The district has not had any cases of transmission of COVID-19, even amid the omicron wave, a point which was met with words of gratitude by the superintendent for the staff.
“I want to take a minute to say thank you to a ton of staff who have been doing a ton of amazing things in the last four weeks, but quite frankly, all school year,” McGeeney said. “It has been a triumph of success to speak to the entire community and staff of White Salmon about what they do to make school happen every day.”
As some faculty and staff tested positive, community members, parents, and other teachers would step up to the plate and offer to help, he said.
“People will just roll up their sleeves and do whatever it took to get it done. They were flexible in terms of making adjustments on the fly,” McGeeney said. “And I feel like every day I have something new to tell them, whether it’s new guidance or instructions … and everyone’s been rolling with the punches. And most importantly, when you walk on the school campuses, kids don’t feel that vibe. It’s peaceful, it’s happy. It’s engaged in learning.”
McGeeney said that for a moment two weeks ago, he was preparing to act on plans to transition out of full-time in-person learning should community transmission of COVID-19 increase. He released a message Jan. 21 explaining to families and community members that district is developing plans to cover staffing shortages, should they occur. In the message, McGeeney said the district was not anticipating a return to full-time remote learning.
Explaining the reasoning for the announcement, McGeeney said: “I wanted to let everyone know that we weren’t going to do this foolishly, errantly, or just be oblivious to the fact that ... it’s true for every organization right now that we have to deal with pandemic impacts.”
At the meeting, he said the district is putting its COVID-19 response plans back on the shelf.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to have to execute on those plans. Let’s knock on wood and hope it continues to stay that way. We’re 90 days halfway through school in person. I’m looking forward to the next 90 days in person,” he said. “But there was a lot of behind the scenes planning and sweating and probably worried, to be quite frank and honest with you. But (district staff and administrators) did a tremendous amount of work. And they did a great amount of thinking and came with some great plans.”
He also shared gratitude for community members who helped out during this month’s snowstorm, including Aaron Kreps and his construction crew and the district’s maintenance staff.
The superintendent announced results of the statewide Smarter Balanced assessment, which tests third through eighth graders on literacy and math. While students stayed on average for the literacy portions of the assessment, math knowledge decreased a bit over the past year. McGeeney said literacy requires reading practice, which can be more attainable at home, versus math skills which can get more complicated when doing it remotely. The data was preliminary, and a more detailed readout is expected later.
“Honestly, I see that also as a reset of a new reality. Now that the pandemic has occurred, and we’ve closed schools and reopened, this is where we’re at. And now we take where we’re at. And we make plans for how we’re going to grow from there. And the leadership team and I have already started to develop plans,” he said.
The school board voted on adjustments to the school calendar, which were required due to the snow days used last month.
June 14 will now be the last day of school; June 9 was the originally scheduled final day of class. The district added early releases to March 2, May 4, and May 25. The board kept the PLC release day. Graduation will not be moving, McGeeney said. It is scheduled for June 4.
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