HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Havre Public School Board held a special meeting on Tuesday afternoon and voted to resume hybrid learning until further notice.
By a 6-1 vote, the Board decided to transition back into Phase 2B of their reopening plan on October 28th, which will be an ‘A’ day. October 29th will be a ‘B’ day, and October 30th will be a remote learning day.
Curtis Smeby cast the lone dissenting vote. Theresa Miller was not present.
The motion that was passed states that building and District administrators can make the decision to temporarily move back to remote learning for specific schools if outbreaks are identified.
“There isn’t a set metric in place, because it’s really going to depend on a case-by-case basis on maybe a particular grade level or particular department that makes it impossible for us to continue with providing a quality education,” Superintendent Craig Mueller said. “So that will have to do with are we able to cover those (staffing) positions with other paraprofessionals? But when we do that, we only lessen the instructional capabilities that we have to provide the children. And we also have to look at the number of substitutes that are available. And if we don’t have enough substitutes available, and we don’t have enough staff to cover those classrooms, it may be a decision that has to be made.”
The decision to close a specific building would be reevaluated at the next scheduled board meeting.
Havre Public Schools has been in remote learning since October 13th. Since then, 24 District-associated COVID-19 cases have been reported, bringing the cumulative total to 44.
But Mueller says the two week break from in-person learning has allowed the District to get back to adequate staffing levels.
“When we went full remote, which was a direction to try to give our teachers and students an opportunity to get healthy, we have cleared many of those students from quarantine,” Mueller said. “Yes, over the course of the last two weeks, we have had additional positive cases and additional students be quarantined. But for the most part, our staff is in a place where we can resume direct instruction tomorrow across all five of our buildings.”
As of Tuesday morning, Havre Public Schools had nine active COVID-19 cases among students and seven among staff. Seven of the nine active student cases are associated with Havre High School students. 24 students and eight staff had recovered.
60 students and eight staff were in quarantine as of Tuesday morning after being identified as close contacts to known cases. 35 of those students and four staff are associated with Havre High School.
Over 40 people provided public comment before the vote was held, with all but one comment coming from the Zoom chat.
Only a handful of people spoke against reopening the District to in-person learning, with many people in favor of the motion asking to move back to at least four days a week of in-person learning as soon as possible.
Also at the meeting, the Board accepted Trustee Brian Williams’ resignation, effective on October 28th. Williams is moving out of state and therefore is unable to continue serving on the Board.
The position will be advertised and letters of interest can be sent in until 4 PM on November 20th. The seat will be up for re-election in the spring.
More than 230 devices were logged into the meeting.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for November 10th at 6:30 PM.
