Board opts not to go to remote
The Exeter School District will continue to offer a blended instruction model following Thanksgiving break.
The school board voted at its meeting Nov. 17 to table an amended motion to move to full-remote learning for a period of four days after the Thanksgiving break.
Michele Stratton cast the lone no vote.
The board also voted unanimously to continue winter
sports and extracurricular activities and affirmed the continued authority of Dr. Kimberly Minor, superintendent, to close schools if necessary due to the coronavirus pandemic or other emergencies.
The actions came less than a week after district administrators closed Lorane Elementary School for 14 days. According to the district’s notice, the decision to keep the students at home was taken as a precaution to prevent potential classroom exposure to a person who tested positive for COVID-19.
The district’s administrative team had recommended the board adopt full-remote learning from Dec. 1 through Jan. 15.
The administration also recommended the district pause all athletics and extracurricular activities for the same period.
Minor offered the administration’s rationale for the recommendation to the board, citing a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases in the township and all of Berks County.
The metric that puts counties statewide into the substantial cases category is an incidence rate of 100 per 100,000, or a positivity rate greater than 10%, she said, noting the 19606 ZIP code is currently at 221.82 cases per 100,000 with a positivity rate of 20.26%.
Nine staf f members have tested or are presumed positive, said Dr. Christy Haller, human resources director, and 32 staff members, 13 of them teachers, are in quarantine, mostly as a result of exposures outside of school.
The staff absences have crippled the district’s ability to meet student needs, Minor said.
Additionally, Minor said, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found an increase in the virus in the two weeks after Halloween and projects a similar increase following the Thanksgiving break and the winter holidays.
“Given our already high levels of community spread and our difficulties with staffing, it is reasonable to predict that our situation will become more dire following the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays,” Minor said.
School board member Hunter Ahrens offered an amendment to Minor’s proposal, limiting the period of full-remote learning to just four days following Thanksgiving with the option of extending the period if necessary.
The purpose, he said, is to see students return to the schools as soon as possible.
More than a dozen parents and students addressed the board in support of continuing the hybrid model, extracurricular activities and winter sports.
Morgan Truckermiller, a senior soccer and basketball player, asked the board not to pause winter sports.
For years, she has dreamed of senior night and the chance to walk across the court with her father and coach, Charles Truckermiller, Morgan said, breaking into tears.
“For some, it is the last season to play,” she said, noting the effort put into recouping team strength lost after the season ended prematurely last year.