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Date: 12/9/2020
SOUTHWICK – At its Dec. 1 meeting, the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee received updates to strategic plans for Woodland School and Powder Mill School, before Athletic Director Dave Sanschagrin presented the plan for winter sports.
As part of the Woodland School update, Principal Kimberley Saso explained that one of the changes to the plan was expanding social emotional support.
“Our counselors are developing concrete takeaways to embed social emotional support, so these takeaways are provided to teachers to use during the month. Our behavior interventionist has identified universal, proactive Tier One Intervention Strategies and is coaching teachers on its implementation,” she said.
During the Powder Mill School Strategic Plan update, Principal Erin Fahey-Carrier discussed some of the changes as a direct result of COVID-19.
“The last are some brand new, highlighted ones that are completely different than what we expected and are all COVID related. Any additional things we are taking on, we are doing because we need to make sure we have remote and socially distant practices that work for our students,” she said.
Among the new objectives, Fahey-Carrier said the school is trying to keep students learning in person as much as possible.
“We continue to work to make sure our vulnerable learners have as much in person time as possible. Beyond that we want to develop protocols to move learners between models based on individual, classroom, grade-level and school wide needs. We are proud of the fact of the students we’ve had to have quarantine, three quarters of them have been able to shift immediately from in-person to remote,” she said.
To start his presentation, Sanschagrin discussed some of the lessons learned from fall sports across Massachusetts, including the fact that transmission of the virus is linked to events before or after games, not the games themselves.
“At the MIAA level, there is no data linking athletic participation to the spread of the virus in terms of on the field or on the court. The evidence shows that behaviors outside athletic participation has a greater impact, from tailgating and congregating before and after,” he said.
To mitigate the spread before and after events, Sanschagrin said all athletes must be at games or practices within 15 minutes of its start time and not before.
During the presentation, Sanschagrin explained some of the conditions that could bring sports to a halt completely.
“Based on the current memorandum of agreement our district remains fully remote. From an athletic standpoint, if the district is fully remote, athletics would shut down as well. We’re not going to try to run an athletic program if schools aren’t open,” he said.
Sanschagrin added that sports would also be halted if any of the towns went into the red code on the map released each week from the state.
One of the ways the district will be monitoring spread at basketball practice and games is through a survey asking relevant COVID-19 questions.
“For all participation I have created a pre-screening survey that any participants will complete on arrival. It asks all the relevant questions, including about traveling out of state, being exposed, being deemed a close contact, or if you have had any symptoms. They’ll do that by scanning a [QR] code on a poster as they enter the building,” Sanschagrin said.
He added that opposing coaches would answer the survey before all games.
With the proposed plan, in person spectators will not be allowed from hockey or basketball but will be allowed to watch skiing competitions if they follow the proper guidelines.
After Sanschagrin’s presentation, Southwick Regional School Principal Joe Turmel answered questions about how the school would react if a team did have a positive COVID-19 test.
“If we are in our hybrid model when the season starts, and if there was a symptom that was symptomatic, tested positive, or there was a contest where a student tested positive, that cohort or all cohorts would go into remote learning,” he said.
Turmel also said that failure to comply to the policies from any athletes would result in a disqualification for the season.
“We’ve had a very high success rate of students following the mask rules, we’ve had very few students we’ve had to remind about the safety measures. If we got to the point where we needed to discuss with student athletes having their masks on at practice, while there would be a reminder, this is not a progressive discipline model. We view this as a privilege, you follow the rules or you don’t,” he said.
The committee did not vote on winter sports at this time, with the start date for athletics set for Jan. 4.
The STGRSD School Committee next meets on Dec. 15.