Update heard about school start
The Boulder Valley school board heard an update Tuesday about the start of school, including enrollment, new hires and technology support.
Superintendent Rob Anderson and other district leaders said their goal is to keep students in person five days a week. Layered health precautions this school year include increased ventilation and cleaning, handwashing, asking staff and students not to come to school sick and requiring universal mask wearing.
“We’re just very excited we have our kids in school,” Anderson said.
The Boulder County Board of Health earlier this month mandated masks for all students and staff members in all schools and child care facilities, regardless of their vaccination status. The order applies to both private and public schools, including those in the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts.
Along with a mask mandate, the order sets rules for quarantines. Students and teachers will not need to quarantine after a “routine” classroom exposure, as long as they were masked. Students and staff members who are vaccinated and aren’t symptomatic also are exempt from quarantines.
School board member Donna Miers continued to voice her desire for the board to reconsider the mask mandate, saying she represents parents who believe wearing masks can harm children’s health. She also asked the board to allow people to attend board meetings in person to provide public comment.
“It’s time that we revisit that and not shut them out of this room,” she said. “That would help parents feel that they’re really communicating with us.”
District leaders said enrollment is up from last school year, but may not rebound as high as originally projected. The district in the spring projected a small enrollment increase of about 275 students this fall after seeing a large, pandemic-related enrollment drop last school year.
As of Aug. 10, the most recent enrollment count available on the
district’s website, elementary enrollment was about the same as last school year. Middle school enrollment was down, while high school enrollment was up.
For the fall, the district hired 12 new school administrators, six new district level administrators and 110 new teachers.
About 26%, or 29 total, of the new teachers are teachers of color, according to district officials. Hiring more staff members of color is a district priority.
“We continue to make strides, and we didn’t lose ground,” said Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Mike Gradoz, noting the pandemic curtailed the district’s recruiting efforts.
The district distributed Chromebooks to fifth graders for the first time this school year as part of its one-to-web initiative. Districtwide, in fifth through 12th grades, the district gave out 11,500 new devices this school year, as well as provided 1,300 Wifi hot spots to schools to distribute to students without reliable home Internet service. The district also installed 31 outdoor wireless learning spaces at schools during the summer.
On the support side, the district plans to continue providing IT help directly to students and families through its IT service desk as well as deliver replacement devices or hot spots directly to students learning online or quarantining, if needed.
The service desk is available at help.bvsd.org or 720561-HELP.