Superintendent Brian Cordell reported zero positive current COVID-19 cases and zero quarantines at the regular meeting of the New Franklin Board of Education on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. 

The board spent significant time reviewing its COVID-19 policy for the current school year in light of these low infection rates in the district, and of a new policy adopted by the Jefferson City School District, which drops that district’s mask mandate and allows students to forego quarantine based only on close contact, with parent permission. 

Stacy Wells, RN sent a letter to the Howard County Health Department to see if they would support the new plan, Cordell told the board. After two days they got back with Stacy and said they would support that, if it’s something the board wanted to move forward with.”

Wells told the board she had further consulted with Dr. Kevin Frazier, Howard County’s health director, and discussed the need to continually assess and evaluate the effectiveness of any changes, and the possible need to revert back to established COVID protocols if it’s clear that any new policy isn’t working.

Travis Hundley asked about athletics and extracurricular activities and how they might be affected. Wells said the state “recommended a daily test of athletes for a 14-day period for them to be negative, or at minimum, at least the day of a competition. If the school chose to do the test-to-stay option. But then those kids who would be exposed at school from a positive, they would have to be masked in order to be able to stay in school, per that new state guidance.”

Wells clarified that outside of school contacts still have to quarantine outside of school, and still can’t participate in competitions. “Only in-school exposures are allowed to stay,” she said. 

Board President Jeff Chitwood speculated on what might occur should infection and quarantine numbers suddenly rise at any point after any change in COVID policy. “Say we go with this, and all the sudden we’ve got 50 kids out and say, a whole classroom is testing positive because they were around this kid - I mean, what are we going to do? What are our ideas to determine this isn’t working anymore and we need to go back to what we were doing?”

Wells said the data, even with all the positives from a year ago, and a small amount this year, none of those close contacts really became positive, for the most part. “There were so many people positive at once, it was hard to determine. Hopefully we shouldn’t see much of a difference, because we’ll still be doing the three feet distance and all of that.”

Chitwood said he would prefer to be prepared in the event something does happen.

“Is that something that we could do,” asked Judd Evans, “have a plan in place… written up, that we could revert to?”

Cordell said that the new plan does not work for any reason the board would call an emergency board meeting to make a decision. “That’s what I would suggest. We don’t want to do that, but we may have to.”

Alan Marshall added, “If the county health department’s backing you, I think you can proceed.”

The board voted unanimously to change their COVID policy to one resembling that of the Jefferson City district, effective October 21, 2021, with a caveat that they would check with MSHAA to make sure appropriate language about athletic events was included. 

Also at the meeting, Cordell reported that enrollment is 16 students fewer than last year. “If you look back to the 2015 school year, we’re down 35 kids,” Chitwood added. This effects the school district’s budget in terms of state revenue, at approximately $6,300 per student. 

The board also voted unanimously to spend $2,200 toward installing an entrance driveway in the east parking lot, where a chain link fence has been damaged. The cost to repair the fence was quoted at $2,850.

After discussing quotes for repair and replacement of the school elevator submitted since the board’s September meeting, the board voted unanimously to replace the elevator at $36,000, citing ongoing yearly repairs and a lack of parts available for the aging machine. 

The Board of Education meets regularly on the third Wednesday of every month. Meetings are open and the public is invited.