At the December 8 regular School Committee (SC) meeting, Superintendent Heather Perry announced that the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) has not made any specific recommendations about required staff vaccinations, but that there is a 97% vaccination rate among all staff district-wide.
The first substitute training class is filled up with 25 enrollees. They are already taking information for people who want to enroll in the class beginning January 15. There will be another in March, Perry said.
There are new federal guidelines for training bus drivers that will require new rules and will go into effect in February. Perry also said that MDOE is changing teacher certification ranges, but that this will not have immediate impact because existing certifications will be grandfathered.
Perry also announced the first “Learning Facilitators” class to be held in cooperation with Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) in January. Enrollees will be able to earn college credit while working in the Gorham schools and will be certified educational techs after completing the program.
The public guidelines for winter sports are available on the district website, she said.
Great Falls School assistant principal, Deanna Etienne, introduced three students participating in the Student Ambassador Program who serve as positive role models, give back to the school, and perform community service. The School Spirit Team and the Diversity Leadership Team are planning activities for January and February that includes a school-wide diversity event. The Civil Rights team organized a Day of Welcome and produced a welcoming video. They are now researching celebrations around the world. Each student in the program gives five hours of community service and one member is volunteering at a nursing home.
Superintendent Perry gave an overview of her goals, which are available on the district website. They include efforts to promote diversity, unity and inclusion. A consultant is helping to facilitate teacher training. Auditing the social studies curriculum for grades 9-12 is also underway for presentation at the end of the school year. The Anti-racism Team is working with her to increase diversity in the hiring process.
Other highlights of her goals include hiring a facilitator to assist in learning how an early childhood program would operate for pre-K students, completion of the town-wide facilities study, and developing a program for helping K-12 teachers teach skills for life with a focus on teaching executive functioning across all grade levels.
Perry gave an historical report on the substitute fill-rate: the number of substitutes filling positions for absent teachers. The target is 80%, which the district largely achieved from 2015 to 2019 when the percentage began dropping. Since COVID it has dropped farther. There are days when as many as 30 positions are unfilled, and the fill-rate is near 60%. Perry said that her goal was to bring the fill-rate back up to 80% with the addition of newly trained substitutes.
Perry presented COVID data for November which is available on the district website. It showed that student and staff impact, a number reflecting those staying home, quarantined, or sent home with symptoms, was high at the beginning of the month. In K-5 schools there were 328 student incidents and 4 teacher incidents; in grades 6-12 only 117 student incidents.
There was a dip in the middle of the month, but numbers began rising the week of November 28. Perry said that while she did not have figures for the student vaccination rate, 420 had been vaccinated at school clinics and probably 300 more had received vaccinations elsewhere.
In other business, the SC voted to table the 2nd reading of the Public Participation at School Committee Meetings until January because the revised wording was not available. They voted to approve three more early release days — January 12, 26 and February 2 — (5-1, Gagnon). They will review early release days at the January 22 workshop.
They voted (6-0, Perkins absent) to approve the 2021-22 School Committee Goals, election of superintendent as required by the state, and personnel stipends.