After the budget was passed, the Board went into a discussion on the re-opening of schools. Gordon County Schools is set to reopen on Wednesday, Aug. 12.

“We’ve been planning for August 12 to start school,” said Superintendent Dr. Kimberly Fraker. “We are still on track for that. I share with you (the Board) in each of our meetings, and sometimes in between, the preparations we are making.

“We ended up with about ten-and-a-half percent of our students deciding to stay totally online (learning), so we switched around some teaching staff to serve our elementary students, then we have a program-based curriculum for grades six through twelve with some teacher support to make sure the students stay on track” said Fraker.

“Also, I’ve visited with each principal to see the visible changes in their schools, and I think it’s important that we reiterate that this won’t look like school looked when we got out in March,” said Fraker. “Our process and procedures are very different; our attention the first few days of school will be totally on teaching students new processes and procedures, especially in the transitions we have, the cafeterias and how we set up the classrooms to offer as much social distancing as possible. I’ve been very pleased with each one of our schools and the work the principals have done, with their staffs, to mark things. It’s very much like when you go to a store; we have things marked six feet apart. Also in the cafeteria, certain seats are marked that you can sit in and ones marked that you can’t. We will also be using classrooms as well for lunches; they will rotate. You may not get to have lunch every day in the cafeteria. Recess has been worked out. They have put a lot of thought and consideration into (the procedures). When you walk in the buildings, it feels very different. It will be very different. We are intentionally teaching students things about health and safety, and that’s the concentration for the first part of school before we start easing into transitions and how we do things.

“We have videos that will be released this week that show how to ride the bus safely, the importance of masks when you cannot socially distance, what classrooms look like, how we’re cleaning. We’re just real appreciative of the work everyone has put into this and the focus on safety,” said Fraker.

Fraker told the Board that the Calhoun-Gordon County COVID-19 Task Force has been very supportive of both school systems opening, and shared all concerns they had so they could be addressed.

“We know that numbers have been up recently,” said Fraker, saying that the Task Force has given guidance into reopening plans, which is still planned for Aug. 12.

Board member Eddie Hall began discussion on the reopening, asking what the rush was in opening on Aug. 12.

“I looked at the reports from (Gordon County) EMA just for the month of July, and I only counted five or six days where we haven’t had double-digit increases each day,” said Hall. “(There’s) probably somewhere between 500 and 600 new cases just in the month of July. Are we trying to do too much too soon? I think social distancing is good, but I think we’ve all witnessed, if we’re honest, when you put people together, that breaks down pretty quickly. I would like to see a decline in numbers before we bring our kids back to soon, but it’s just my opinion. I think that many cases is a big number to look at when sending our kids to school.”

Board member Bobby Hall said that he felt the numbers will still be high in September, so there was no reason to put off the start of the school year.

“I think September is going to be just as bad as it is right now,” said Bobby Hall. “The only difference in March, and starting school in August is we’re more prepared to have the cleaning done. If we stop now where we’re at, we’ve got to redo our whole calendar. The teachers cannot get out for extra time to pull the classrooms back together. It would mess up the whole school and I can’t support that. I can only support this superintendent that made every preparation (for the return to school) and our teachers, not all of them, but 90 percent of our teachers are ready to go back to school.”

“I will say I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but every meeting that we have, and there’s a meeting every week with Department of Public Health for our region and our local EMA and hospital, and no one has said ‘Don’t go back, you can’t go back. It isn’t advisable.’ Everyone has been very supportive. We’ve followed the guidelines the CDC has put out. We put together a chart of school systems that are on the weekly call for our regional group, and what their plans were for opening. I do know we are all starting back around the same time. We’ve all been in contact with the Department of Public Health. If anyone had said along the way, ‘Don’t do this,’ then we would’ve gone in a different direction,” said Fraker.

Fraker told the Board that the system has asked for more data on students and COVID-19, because they want to see more data on that age group, but haven’t been able to receive it yet.

“We still keep looking for more data,” said Fraker. “So we really rely on our local group and our regional group as far as our decision to return (to school). As far as waiting, I just don’t know what the future will be, and we do feel like the teachers need to see their students and re-establish that connection in school and how we can serve them.”

“I think from a medical standpoint, I don’t think we can fault anyone for asking; people are scared and looking at the numbers, we are worse than we were in March when we shut down,” said Board member Dana Stewart. “Truly the only way we’re going to come through this is through herd immunity or a vaccination. We all know a vaccination is months away, next year. Herd immunity is we all get (COVID) at some point, we don’t know when that will take place. I work in the medical field and I’m very appreciative of all the work the (system) has done. We are seeing an uptick in cases. I think we just have to have a plan, and it sounds like (the system) does, because it’s inevitable; once we get all these kids in one building, we’re going to have cases. We’ve just got to have a plan how we handle that. It would surprise me if we didn’t shut down after a couple of months into school just because of how fast things spread. I think we just have to have that plan in place, and lots of prayer.”

“I do want to offer that we brought all 12-month employees on June 9 and were very successful in bringing our staff back. And of course, with GHSA’s return to sports and conditioning process and the way we started with smaller groups of children, and now we’re up to groups of 50 working together and also offering a couple of camp-type situations. It’s been very successful, so far, with the groups we’ve been bringing back together, which I really applaud our coaches, our schools and our sponsors of those opportunities for students because it’s a tribute to them they’re doing things the right way as far as screening people, having hand sanitizer, emphasizing hand washing and using the masks,” said Fraker.

Board Chair Charlie Walraven then asked Fraker if any students or staff had contacted COVID-19.

“We’ve had two staff members, but one was earlier in May, when we had a school nutrition staff member (test positive) and we had a central office staff member since this started,” said Fraker.

“Is there a point, if we have a breakout at school, we say ‘this school has too many cases?’ Do we have a number in mind?” asked Board member Jason Hendrix.

“We don’t have a number, it’s just us working with the Department of Public Health and they would advise us if we’re at the point where we need to close down,” said Fraker. “We’ve also talked about how it might be a classroom; we would work case by case with the Department of Public Health.”

Fraker said they are encouraging teachers to wear masks as well.

Fraker reiterated that the first few days back will be intentional teaching about safety.

“Do we have any teachers who have tested positive who are not going to be able to start when school starts,” asked Board member Kacee Smith.

“I’ve been notified of a couple, and both of them should be back at the start of school,” said Fraker. “I’ve not been notified of anyone yet that will not be here in the beginning.”

The Board then voted to approve the re-opening of school on August 12, with Bobby Hall, Kacee Smith, Jason Hendrix, Dana Stewart and Charlie Walraven voting for the start of school. Eddie Hall was the lone vote against starting school on August 12.

The next meeting of the Gordon County Board of Education is set for Monday, Aug. 10, at 6:15 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Gordon County College and Career Academy on Beamer Road.