FULTON – At the Fulton City School District Board of Education meeting last night, December 8, Christopher Ells, the district’s COVID-19 coordinator, gave an update as to how the district is handling contact tracing and its plans for winter sports.
He said a few weeks ago the Oswego County Health Department reached out to the district asking them to conduct contact tracing for cases within the district because they did not have enough staff to make all the calls.
“We have taken that over as a school district; it’s not really a lot different than what we were already doing,” Ells said. “Once we get a notification that somebody has tested positive and we need to help with the tracing, we’re actually making those phone calls to let them know – these are the dates when you’re going to be quarantined… All of our families have been extremely supportive.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently changed the required quarantine days from 14 to 10. Ells explained that New York and Oswego County are still going by 14 days.
Ells, who is also the Athletics Director, then gave a report on winter sports. He said Section III has approved low to moderate risk sports beginning December 14. This would include the bowling, swimming, and indoor track team. He said he is looking to start December 16 and for swimming and bowling competitions to begin in January.
Since Section III uses college facilities, they will not be able to hold indoor track competitions. However, they will still be allowed to practice.
For swimming, it is possible to adjust practices and lanes to have swim meets. They are scheduled for in-person meets, but if the district is going to have a meet with a school in an Orange or a Red zone, they will not compete in-person. At that point, they would look to reschedule or do a virtual meet.
For bowling, the team will be competing against other teams virtually. Ells said there are dividers between each bowling lane and the students do not share any equipment.
Superintendent Brian Pulvino said the district would like to compete with other districts who share the same philosophy as Fulton in terms of wearing face masks during a game/meet. Ells elaborated that while all districts are following state guidance, there is room for interpretation in wearing a mask “as tolerated.”
He said for some districts that could mean taking it off 30 seconds after the game begins and for others it could mean taking it off and exiting the game when it gets to the point of no longer being able to tolerate it.
“Our philosophy would follow very similar to what we have in school,” Ells said. “We believe in masks at all times… We would require our student athletes to wear a mask and if it’s not tolerated, we would ask them to come out of the game or out of the practice at that point and physically distance away from the rest of the teammates… We’re talking at least 12 feet apart from anybody.”
Referees do not oversee or police players in terms of them wearing face masks, but rather just officiate the game as usual.
Ells said while they have not made an absolute decision on whether to allow spectators, they are leaning toward no spectators for bowling. He said he personally would like to follow suit for swimming as well.
For the other winter sports – wrestling, boys and girls basketball, hockey and cheerleading – student athletes will have to wait to participate again as they are considered high risk for spreading the COVID-19 virus. This is because it is impossible to physically distance in these activities and the student athletes share equipment.
Also in the BOE meeting, Pulvino gave a report on the district’s 2021-2022 budget development and what the presentation will look like. There will be a budget workshop December 15 at 6 p.m.
The full meeting can be viewed here and the agenda is available here.
missing or outdated ad config