HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Havre Public School Board has voted to move to fully remote learning until October 28th but allow extracurriculars to continue.
The vote to move to remote learning was 5-3. Harvey Capellen, Ed Hill, and Theresa Miller cast the three dissenting votes.
“I have three kids that go to Havre Public Schools, I have two kids that go to college that are affected,” said Trustee Brian Williams, who also works at Northern Montana Hospital and put the motion to move to remote learning on the table. “There is nothing I would like to see more than to return to normal activity. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’m willing to put the health of our teachers and kids at risk. I know it’s tough for many kids and their education, but unfortunately I don’t have a good answer and can’t stop the virus. But the most I can do is the most I can do. We’ve gotta do the best we can to protect the people that are educating our kids, but also protect our kids from this as much as possible. I want my kids to be back in school, I want them to have those opportunities, but I don’t see a way around this. And I know people are like, ‘it’s here to stay,’ but it’s not doing well for people. There are people in our community that have died from COVID-19. Granted they’re not kids, but they are elderly people who those kids are around.”
The Board then unanimously passed a separate motion to allow High School students to take the ACT Test on October 20th, as originally scheduled.
Finally, the Board voted 7-1 to allow athletics and extracurriculars to continue, “pending health and spread of the virus within the contact group and the ability to manage the virus within each particular group,” with additional precautions. Those precautions include reinstating the ticket limit on events, not allowing locker room use, and limiting practice times.
Curtis Smeby cast the lone dissenting vote.
The decision to move to fully remote learning was made due to the increase of COVID-19 cases in both the District, Hill County and the Hi-Line over the last few weeks. The hope is that this break in in-person learning will allow for the county to flatten the curve and sufficiently contact trace current cases in the District.
As of October 11th in Hill County, 511 people were either in isolation (COVID-19 positive) or quarantine (identified as a close contact). The number of people quarantined has approximately quadrupled in the last two weeks and the number of active cases is up fivefold.
According to information provided by Havre Public Schools Nurse Jeri Erickson, 151 students and 28 staff are currently in quarantine. 19 students and six staff have tested positive for COVID-19. 13 of the student cases and two of the staff cases remain active.
“Through the course from Friday through today, we have been able to weather the storm,” said Superintendent Craig Mueller. “Our staff has done an unbelievable job in stepping up and serving not only their students but their community, and we’ve had great coverage from our own teachers, and the few substitutes that are coming into work at our facilities.”
However, the Board and several members of the public stressed concern that the staffing crunch would only get worse if they remained open.
“We need to do things a little bit differently now that we’re in the category of exponential (COVID-19 case) growth,” said Erica McKeon-Hanson, member of the Hill County Health Board. “We need to have this two week recess to give everyone, give the community time within the two weeks in order to minimize contact and minimize spread so that we can start to get ahead. Our public health is stressed, our contact tracers are working from sunup to sundown. We’ve added additional contact tracers. The hospital is also feeling it. Their flu clinic is very busy with testing. I would just ask that you all support the motion on the table and that would go a long way for our community in two weeks.”
One issue that the District will face is a technology gap, as many students do not have sufficient internet access or devices for online aspects of remote learning. The District has some Chromebooks and iPads, but were hoping to get a shipment of 350 Chromebooks in by the middle of September. That has been delayed until the end of December.
However, during the public comment portion of the meeting, Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line Director Tim Brurud said he would lend 40 Chromebooks and 16 laptops to the District to help out during the closure. Brurud added that the Boys & Girls Club has been suffering similar issues due to COVID-19 recently and will be closing until October 28th as well.
“We’ve had positive kids taken down, we’ve had staff be contact traced,” Brurud says. “It’s been very difficult to do the work under those conditions. I think a two-week hiatus to let that run it’s course, to let the students and the staff come back and ready to go into full activity would be the wise thing to do. I would urge you to listen to public health officials and to listen to Craig (Mueller) and his recommendations.”
In a report provided by Chief of Staff Kevin Harada at Northern Montana Hospital to Mueller to give to the Board at the meeting, he said their ICU beds are 50 percent full and they currently have 10 COVID-19 patients, although some of those are from surrounding counties. Like Havre Public Schools, they are currently experiencing a staffing crunch with many people in quarantine.
The meeting lasted over 2 hours and 40 minutes and was held in-person with a Zoom option. Over 240 devices were logged into the Zoom option.
Stay tuned to New Media Broadcasters for updates.
