OSWEGO – Health concerns and the transmission of the COVID-19 virus across the county was the main topic of discussion during last night’s Oswego City School District Board of Education Meeting, Nov. 17.
According to the Oswego County Health Department, the increased number of outbreaks within the county are linked to various social gatherings occurring throughout the Halloween weekend.
Superintendent Dr. Mathis Calvin III profiled several area school districts COVID-19 positivity rates over the last seven days, outlining Oswego County’s positivity rate for Monday, Nov. 16 at 3.1%. The county has a rolling average of 4.1% over the last seven-day period.
Calvin said if numbers continue to rise, entering into a 3.5% positivity rate over a 10-day rolling average, Oswego County will acquire the Yellow Zone designation.
According to Gov. Cuomo’s Updated COVID-19 Micro-Cluster Focus Zones announcement, the Yellow Zone designation would include a 20% testing rate of in-person students, faculty and staff in schools over a two week period immediately following the announcement.
“What that’s telling me is that, technically we’ll see what happens over the next couple of days, [but] we pretty much are moving toward this Yellow Zone requirement,” Calvin said. “We’re pretty much there now, is what this looks like to us.”
Oswego County Department of Health Senior Public Health Educator Diane Oldenburg was a guest speaker during the meeting, going over data presented throughout the Superintendents Report.
“If we talk about that other graph where you see the highest mark – I think it was about 51 or 57 (COVID-19) cases – it was pretty much exactly two weeks after Halloween,” Oldenburg said. “So, we know the incubation period is about 14 days, so it wasn’t unusual that we saw that really high spike.”
Oldenburg also gave an in depth review of how the Health Department makes determinations based on COVID-19 quarantining and isolation, providing pertinent, fact-based information to support their decisions.
Calvin is asking all district members to continue practicing diligence with health and safety measures to limit the spread of the virus.
Other items discussed during the meeting include the following:
- Continued plans for secondary students return to school. A survey was sent out resulting in 60-70 percent of parents/caregivers preferring kids return to school. The district will be formulating a Planning Re-entry Team soon.
- Tom Zubber, CPA with Mengal, Metzgar, Barr and Co., LLP covered results from the districts external audit. Overall, the district ended their year in good financial shape.
- Items needing purchasing from last year include 10 buses and 2 SUVS. Items purchased this year include one bus and two SUV’s. The district’s goal is to move from a seven-year replacement plan to a five-year replacement plan.
- Calvin presented the ongoing threat of a 20 percent cut in state aid. The cut would amount to $5.2 billion in overall funding. Other proposed cuts would affect transportation aid, as well as high-cost aid (1:1 aide, nursing, etc.) The district is awaiting updates.
- Capital Improvement Project updates
- Athletics update:
- Bowling and boys swimming (varsity only) are recommended at this time.
- Basketball, wrestling, hockey and cheerleading are not recommend at this time as they are too high-risk.
- Spectators will not be allowed at any athletic competitions at this time. The district is looking into shooting a live video of the events, the recordings being sent to family members/caretakers for viewing.
- The district will provide transportation to and from athletic events.
The Board also held a Policy Meeting before their Regular Meeting. The committee discussed and unanimously approved updated changes in their current policies.
Policies come through Erie One, the BOCES Service sending updates on new or existing policies the district has. The schools will also update their own policies as needed throughout the year based on their personal (the districts) situations.
The committee reviews and discusses the policy changes before voting. Revisions in the policies are color coded with blue as an addition, red as a deletion and green meaning a section has been moved from one part of the policy to another.
All policy changes and regular meeting resolutions were unanimously passed by the Board. To view the Regular BOE Meeting documents, please click here. To view the Policy Meeting documents, please click here.
All BOE meetings are held the first and third Tuesday of every month. The next meeting will be held on Dec. 1 from 5-6 p.m.
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