Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 1/11/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – The South Hadley School Committee met on Jan. 4 for their regularly scheduled meeting where they discussed a variety of topics including the return to in-person learning and winter sports.
The meeting was the first one following a week and a half break for the holidays and the first one of 2021. The meeting began with several parents and community members speaking on behalf of students and advocating for the district to allow winter sports to be played.
Interim Superintendent Diana Bonneville began her update by delivering the news that a longtime special educator in the district, Janie LaComb, had died. After providing details about the service and how the district was accommodating teacher’s schedules to pay their respects, Bonneville gave an update regarding the town’s COVID-19 numbers and status. She said in two weeks the town’s numbers had increased and was categorized as red for the first time.
After chairperson Kyle Belanger gave a brief statement about LaComb’s passing, what she meant to the community and thanked her family for sharing her with the community, member Christine Phillips announced that she would be stepping down from the School Committee at the end of her term in April.
“I wanted to take a minute to thank the South Hadley community for allowing me to represent the School Committee, it’s been an honor. But what I’ve had to do is look at my future ahead of me and start to think about the fact that as much as it has been an honor and a pleasure to serve alongside all of you and some of the other people before, it is definitely time for me to take a different path,” she said. “And so I wanted to take this meeting early on just to announce that I will not be running for reelection.”
After members of the community expressed their gratitude for Phillips’ hard work, the group moved on to discuss the contract for Dr. Jamal Mosley, who had been offered the position of the district’s next superintendent. The group approved the contract unanimously after a brief discussion. Belanger added that Mosley had already signed the contract and said the next step was for the group to sign the contract.
Bonneville then gave her recommendation regarding the return of high needs students and the childcare cohort to in-person learning. She said she felt the district needed “to wait at least three weeks to see that our numbers are trending in our favor,” and that the district was “closer to the three percent mark.”
She added that staffing had been another issue for the district and as of the time of the meeting there were three students that had tested positive for COVID-19 at the high school, three students at the high school that were waiting on test results and an adult who was quarantining.
At the middle school, Bonneville said one adult had tested positive, and five adults and one student were quarantining. At the Mosier School, Bonneville said that one staff member was quarantining, two students had tested positive and “a couple” staff members were quarantining as they had been identified as close contacts. At the Plains Elementary School, she said there had been just one positive case of COVID-19 identified.
After some discussion the group then voted on a motion for all four schools to continue remote learning until at least Feb. 1, with a goal of the childcare cohort and high needs students returning at that time. However, included in the motion was that they would revisit the discussion during their Jan. 25 meeting. The group unanimously passed the motion and then went on to discuss winter sports.
Belanger said that signups for winter sports had started the same day as the meeting and that the group had previously voted on conditions for which sports would need to follow to begin. Garcia said she felt as though sports didn’t need to be cancelled altogether and they had successfully managed fall sports.
“I don’t think we should cancel sports, but I also think we have to look at the numbers right now and we have to be realistic about what we are able to do,” she said. Phillips suggested that the start of sports be delayed, however, sports be allowed to practice starting Jan. 25. After quite a bit of discussion, athletic director Eric Castonguay joined the call to clarify some questions the committee had.
He said Jan. 25 had to be “the last minute we could actually participate” due to an MIAA rule that stated there needed to be two weeks of practice “for safety and teaching” prior to starting games. “Delaying it two weeks puts it in a tough spot because all the athletic directors need to get the schedules going,” he said.
Ultimately, after much discussion, the committee unanimously decided to postpone winter sports practice until Jan. 25 pending a meeting on Jan. 21 to discuss metrics and where the town is with respect to COVID-19 cases.