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Date: 1/11/2022
AMHERST – The Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee met for the first time in the new year and Superintendent Mike Morris had an informative update on COVID-19 testing and cases in the schools.
Morris opened his update on safety and health in the schools by sharing there has been an uptick in pool testing enrollment in the district and participation continues to grow. He shared that about half of students are now participating in pool testing which is up from about a third of students from when pool testing first began in schools, but also added the numbers vary by school.
“Transmissibility is more concerning than anything,” Morris said on the omicron variant wave that has seen more positive cases than at any other point during the pandemic.
Morris added that it was important to remain consistent even with the new challenge of another variant by communicating with the community, getting testing, following masking orders and social distancing, and getting vaccinated to fight back against the virus.
Before winter break, every student and staff member went home with a box of two antigen tests on behalf of the committees partnership with the Amherst Board of Health. These tests reached students in the region and not just Amherst students, something Morris thanked the Amherst Health Department for understanding the need to have accessibly options to students and families.
The Health Department also distributed two tests to every staff member on Jan. 2 as an effort to give teachers the resources to try and prevent any spreading. Morris did add that some teachers received positive tests and were asymptomatic, illustrating why having tests available is important in keeping schools open and limiting the spread.
Morris said Amherst was “very fortunate” when you look at the local data compared to the state in case numbers.
“Our community has taken those areas seriously,” Morris said on doing the necessary precautions to fight transmission of the virus.
Morris also mentioned that this week a program was started to give rapid tests to close contact students when they go home that day to try and offer some “peace of mind” for students and families.
The superintendent also announced that they would be moving to add cloth masks to the list of inappropriate facial coverings for mask mandates. Cloth masks will join bandanas and other non-mask face coverings that the school had already deemed inefficient after recommendation from health officials. KN95 masks are available on behalf of the school for students and staff and are the recommended face protection as the cloth mask will be banned starting the following week of the meeting.
Morris made it clear that having accessibility and being equitable with these resources is important in keeping the schools open.
“All these things are to keep schools running. We know the value of in person schooling for kids and that’s our goal,” Morris said. “Anything that gets in the way of that goal we’re going to take very conservative measures on.”
When opened up to questions for the superintendent, Amherst representative Peter Demling asked Morris what he believed was the most critical thing he was worried about in keeping schools open.
“Every day I wake up and kids get on a bus and if they can get to school with high quality adults working for them, it’s a win for us this year,” Morris said.
Reorganization
In other news, the committee welcomed two new representatives from Amherst – Irv Rhodes and Jennifer Shiao, who were elected on Nov. 2, 2021.
The committee then nominated and voted on a new chair and vice chair. Previous Chair Allison McDonald was nominated again for chair but wanted to see if there were any other worthy candidates who wanted to fill the position. With a position already on other committees, McDonald felt there would be better candidates who could commit more to the committee.
McDonald then nominated Ben Herrington for chair, and he accepted.
“I think it’s a great team of equals here and I think Mr. Herrington has demonstrated that sort of ethos and can carry that on in terms of listening and balancing everybody’s ideas,” McDonald said.
In a unanimous vote, Herrington was voted as chair.
“Great nomination, and I enthusiastically support Ben’s nomination,” said Rhodes.
Pelham representative Sarahbess Kenney was nominated and unanimously approved by her fellow committee members to be vice chair.