District hears COVID-19 report

CLOVIS — There were no action items, no votes to be taken during the superintendent’s report at Tuesday’s Clovis Municipal Schools Board of Education meeting.

But the report from Superintendent Renee Russ was by far the most voluminous and the most well received portion of the meeting as she spoke about the challenges and successes the district has had managing the COVID-19 pandemic on the fly.

“We have employees who have shown extreme flexibility,” Russ said, “and just a willingness to step in stride with us at the district level and take on whatever needed to be taken on.”

In a lengthy address in which she warned she would undoubtedly miss a few details or important names, Russ ran through six weeks of activities since schools closed due to public health orders.

She noted weekends and late nights for nearly every type of employee, from teachers and administrators developing a learn-at-home model to employees working the technology help desk for well beyond the 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. timeframe.

Russ said Internet access has been a barrier for some students, just as it has been across the state and the nation. She credited Plateau for offering temporary free Internet access. The district has boosted wi-fi signals in its parking lots, and Russ acknowledged the city and county for extending theirs to aid in the effort.

For 200 families still lacking Internet access, Russ said, an initiative with Adair has several buses with wi-fi that will visit neighborhoods that need the access.

“We see that as being something that will maybe persist,” Russ said. “We’re pretty excited to see how that will turn out.”

The greatest concern was making sure Clovis High seniors had every opportunity to meet graduation requirements. She said at the time of the school closures on March 15, about 70 seniors were in jeopardy of not making it, but that number was down to around 13 thanks to work from the CHS staff.

The district lost five families who applied for a home-schooling model, and had 20 new students enrolled against 30 departures that were mostly military families.

“We really haven’t had a mass exodus,” Russ said.

Russ said it was a difficult time to just be a human being, let alone a productive employee, and credited Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy for offering web conference training to hundreds of employees in Clovis and other districts for Google Classroom and Zoom, Shelly Norris for providing support to principals and Joe Strickland for his efforts to redefine numerous job descriptions and manage new processes and protocols the district never imagined it would need.

She also credited Eric Wimbish in the information technology department for handling a malware attack so it didn’t interfere with the payroll process, and Jelayne Curtis and Sharna Gardner for continuously keeping staff and community members informed with press releases delivered via email, Facebook and the website.

“The CMS staff rally and pull together like no other group of people,” Russ said. “It’s amazing to see how our campus staff and our group of teachers have come together to try to lift up students. Our employees are really going all out to keep our students encouraged and engaged, and they’re a great group of people for doing that.”

The district is working on a five-week timeline for kids to collect items from their schools and stay in line with public health orders on occupancy, and is looking at various ways to celebrate its seniors and mark Teacher Appreciation Week.

Of course, Russ said there will be huge financial concerns due to public health order impacts on gross receipts taxes and plummeting oil prices. She is anticipating reductions of at least 25% in overall budgets, clawbacks on various initiatives and possibly a hit to the unit value that determines district funding. The district has withdrawn all of its K-5 Plus applications and most of its extended learning applications, and is looking at extra costs in technology, personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies and staff overtime.

Board members were thanked for their support, and they praised the staff members for their work.

Board member Shawn Hamilton said the pandemic has been a significant challenge for his auto dealerships, and he doesn’t have anywhere close to the employee numbers CMS has. Despite that, he feels like his children haven’t missed a beat in their learning.

In other business at the Tuesday meeting:

• Policy was introduced to allow employees to cash in sick days at $100 per day. Strickland said the policy was created before the pandemic was an issue, but that it was more valuable now.

When asked if the district can afford to buy those sick days, Strickland said a sick day costs the district that much just in hiring a substitute.

“I treat my sick days like gold,” Strickland said, “because you never know when you’re going to need them.”

• Another policy was introduced to raise the vacation cap from 20 days to 30. Strickland is hopeful people don’t all take their vacation at once when public health orders are lifted. He said there would be extra costs when those employees leave the district, but the move will help the district in the short term.

• Language was amended in the school’s bus service contract with Adair. Language reduced the contract value if there wasn’t school for inclement weather or other reasons, but the state instructed districts to not let the pandemic impact contractor payments.

• The board approved the 2020-21 salary schedule with 4% increases, but staff noted changes could be made if there are state funding deficiencies.

Board President Cindy Osburn felt it would be inexcusable to take away promised raises after teachers had performed so admirably over the last few weeks, and the state should be able to find other places to make cuts.

Board member Kyle Snider agreed, noting it was unfair to cut educator pay for something they had no control over.

• The next meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. May 26, tentatively at the CMS administrative building.