Northwest Area recommending — not requiring — masks

UNION TWP. — Though it wasn’t officially finalized as of Wednesday’s School Board meeting, Superintendent Joseph Long said the district will begin school Monday with the same masking plan drawn up earlier this month: Masks will be recommended but not required.

“Tomorrow we will be updating the school safety plan,” he said, noting some additional details of guidance were provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “we’ll be in class five days a week, and it mostly is the same as the Aug. 9 plan.”

Asked if the district will participate in free COVID-19 pool testing the state is making available, Long said there still aren’t enough details on how the plan would work, and that state officials are arranging a meeting with the district to provide more information. He also noted the testing would be completely voluntary.

And he said the district is in the process of rewriting the curriculum for grades K-7, to be put in place for the 2021-22 school year, but added the proposal would be made public before the board votes on it.

The voting session was largely minor actions, primarily accepting resignations and approving transfers of employees or posting for applicants to fill vacant positions.

After the voting, several parents raised concerns about the district’s disaster response plan for school bus drivers.

One woman who said she has driven for the district for 13 years said she has never been told what her assignment would be if a disaster required immediate relocation of students out of the area. A man who workers with a local emergency management agency said the district may have a plan, but it has to tell all involved what it is in advance, and that that has not always happened.

Long promised the matter would be addressed by the school board’s transportation committee.