Tosh

Tosh

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KINGSTON — Wyoming Valley West students may return to school five days a week, ending hybrid teaching, on April 12, Superintendent Dave Tosh said at the beginning of Wednesday’s School Board meeting.

Stressing it was tentative, Tosh said the plan is to still allow students to learn remotely at home if they are concerned about returning to in-person instruction.

The School Board voted to hire Board Member James Fender’s son, also named James, as school nurse at the State Street School, at a starting salary of $44,500. Board Member Fender abstained in the vote. Board Members David Usavage and Charles Kamus also abstained, though Kamus said it was because that item and the appointment of a learning support teacher at the Middle School were not “properly posted on the agenda.”

The vote came under “staff recommended actions.” The agenda posted on the district website prior to the meeting had 16 items, but when it was moved for a vote during the meeting Board President Joe Mazur said he would read numbers 17 and 18. The last one was the appointment of a school nurse. With eight members present, three abstained from number 18, two abstained on number 17, and the rest voted yes for all 18 items.

No one commented on the relationship of the school nurse appointee to the board member. The appointment was to fill a vacancy prompted by an earlier resignation. Fender’s term on the board expires this December, and according to the Luzerne County Election Bureau he did not file petitions to run for another term.

In announcing the tentative return to 5-day-a-week, in-person classes, Tosh cited Gov. Tom Wolf’s new push to get all teachers and school staff vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic. Wolf is setting aside the new Johnson and Johnson, single dose vaccine for the job, and the state is using the 28 intermediate units — agencies set up by the state to provide various services to schools in their area — to coordinate the effort. Locally, Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18 is handling the project.

Tosh noted the district has begun to return some students to schools in a hybrid fashion, slowly adding groups each week. And he said the guidance from experts is to wait two week after vaccination to develop maximum resistance to the virus. Once teachers, staff and bus drivers are vaccinated and have waited the two weeks, full in-person classes should resume.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish