FULTON – The Fulton City School District Board of Education met virtually last night, November 10, and discussed the recent spike in COVID-19 cases across Oswego County and how it has been handling the pandemic’s effects within the district.
Superintendent Brian Pulvino said each day the district reflects and evolves with the challenges presented by the pandemic.
“We’ve done a very good job to this point, and I think now we need to continue to reinforce all of the key strategies – the mask wearing, the hand washing, making sure that we’re taking care of one another, and we’ve been doing an outstanding job with that,” Pulvino said. “But we’re headed into a very challenging time… There’s a lot going on around us.”
Pulvino said the district is focusing on three key factors – health and safety, social-emotional well-being, and teaching and learning.
The district’s return to learning goals include to provide a safe in-person learning environment for the students, a comparable online-only alternative for the 30% of students who chose the virtual-only learning option, and to provide the highest quality instruction regardless of constraints this year.
“We’re teaching the skill of coming together and supporting one another and believing in one another to accomplish anything,” Pulvino said. “I believe that we’re up for more difficult times coming up, as these numbers rise a little bit, and it’s hard, but I want to commend our staff, our students, our community for sticking in there with us as we move forward.”
Geri Geitner and Donna Parkhurst also gave a presentation on the focus of social-emotional benchmarks for students throughout the district. In the high school, this takes the form of two formal guided lessons each week. On Monday, a guided teacher reaches out to his or her students individually to assess how they are doing and what they may need.
They then showed a video of an FCSD teacher and students discussing their thoughts on the Guided program and how it has impacted them this year.
“This is a silver lining,” Parkhurst said. “Our teachers – this is their focus, and it is really the lifeline that every single student has… This is a regular interaction that’s guaranteed every day.”
The BOE then discussed a recap of the Superintendent’s Day conference on November 6.
Christopher Ells, the COVID coordinator who is also the athletic director, gave an update on the district’s personal protective equipment supply. He said he has not seen a shortage and they are keeping a good balance of inventory.
Ells also talked about student athletics. He said Section III – the regional sports association – met last week and voted to delay the start of sports until December 14 in order to have more time to get more guidance from the state athletic office and department of health. He said there will be no contests starting until 2021.
Pulvino then discussed the beginning of the budget season. The BOE will soon begin conducting its budget workshops to talk about the finances for the next academic school year.
The Board concluded the meeting with members discussing their thoughts on the presentations and updates along with voting on the agenda’s resolutions.
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During the Superintendent’s report, the video link crashed and the BOE made a new link.
Second link after crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKf_RIch0aI&fbclid=IwAR19FH-U85qE7cmp6CmtD6Syt4FYA4Z9v4BrgwOMF1ExQkUFRu1KzmfNEyA
Agenda items link: https://go.boarddocs.com/ny/FultonCSD/Board.nsf/Public
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