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Date: 6/30/2021
EAST LONGMEADOW – June 21, 2021 marked the last School Committee meeting of the 2020-2021 school year. It also marked Gregory Thompson's final meeting as chair. On behalf of the entire committee, Superintendent Gordon Smith presented Thompson with a plaque for his “courageous and consistent” leadership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It really has been an honor to be chair for the last two years now," expressed Thompson. "We've been through a heck of a lot, so thank you all for this year. We made it. We're on the other side."
Smith then presented an end of the year slide presentation. Smith started off by saying, "It really took all of us in this room, all of our staff and families coming together to make what I can only describe as an incredibly successful year, given the number of challenges that we had and the fact that we hit all three models. We had remote, hybrid and in-person.”
Smith said he thinks every staff member is a rock star; commending the ELPS community and community at large for coming together and getting through the year.
With this end of the year presentation, Smith took time to thank the East Longmeadow Health Department, Fire Department and Department of Public Works for their support in helping them create a safe environment for teaching and learning and how much the committee value their partnership. He also thanked the Health and Medical Advisory Group that includes the East Longmeadow Director of Health, the ELPS Consulting Physician, the ELPS Nurse Leader, the five building nurses and the ELPS Family Liaison.
The Health and Medical Advisory Group had 22 formal planning meetings and attended nine school committee meetings. Within the last month and a half, according to Smith’s presentation, the East Longmeadow Public Schools Health and Medical Advisory Group ran two vaccine clinics partnering with the East Longmeadow Health Department and the East Longmeadow Fire Department. Throughout the course of this year, the Health and Medical Advisory Group identified 210 positive cases. They went into action and started the contact tracing. They were connecting with those 210 families and helped the administration figure out who the close contacts were, subsequently contacting another 697 families.
Throughout the year, with all of those close contacts and positive cases, Smith said they didn't see any significant transmission in schools. Across the district, the East Longmeadow Public Schools are in the 97.4 percent range for attendance throughout the year and 4 percent for chronic absenteeism for the district.
In other business, the committee then voted committee member William Fonseca to be the MASC voting Delegate for the 2021 MASC Conference with committee member Elizabeth Marsian-Boucher as the alternate. They also announced that they will be participating in the Fourth of July parade.
On a happy note, the meeting ended with Thompson's last remarks. "Thank you all so very much for your time, energy and efforts this year," he said. "It's been an amazing incredible year. I think we're all stronger and better for what we've been through collectively and individually, so I just wanted to thank you all for your time."