Shannon Ernst, director of Social Services, gave an update on efforts of the Board of Health staff meeting with school district staff regarding the reopening of the 2020-21 school year. Dr. Summer Stephens shared the preliminary plans the Churchill County School District is making for the school year with the transition and reopening plan.
Stephens has been meeting internally for the past couple of weeks with close to 60 school personnel, both classified and licensed leadership and have honed into the partial reopening, what she calls a “hybrid model.”
According to a survey done at the end of the school year, Stephens says many families want their students to attend school every day even if it is a half day. “The financial constraints of different options are staggering.” The district is looking at two models at this time, a.m./p.m. options or A/B with half the students attending at one time. “None of these great options, we realize that,” said Stephens. “Right now we have the directive from the Governor and we understood that regionally, or even county-wide there was going to be some latitude…we don’t know if it’s good next step to push a little bit more from a county level in terms of reopening.”
Stephens said the district will have offer a full-time online option for K-12 for anyone who is not comfortable with their student returning in person. The district has also met with members of the health board, the City, and the Navy regarding the issue of child care in the event that the hybrid model is implemented and how parents will be able to commit to their place of work and to their children to support times of the day when their children are not physically at the school building.
“We really would like to go back to full time for all students…this may take your help if you think there’s any room for the county to make a plea or suggestion to the LEAP group or to the Governor.” Stephens said the district will continue to gather responses from families
The next step is to share with the school board and the district will take the final plan to the school board on July 15, 2020. The Board of Health voted to prepare a letter of support for the implementation plan for the school district.
Ernst gave an update on the county efforts to provide asymptomatic testing to the community. To date, there have been 866 asymptomatic tests given and the county will continue to do the testing on Thursdays until July 9. After discussions, the county has decided to continue testing every two weeks through August and if a need for more testing becomes necessary it will be easy to ramp up and go back to weekly testing. requested to keep open we want to have a place with reopening keep resources for contact tracing and retest for return to work no active positive at this point. Keep open every two weeks through August.
The office of Social Services has been working on the CARES Act allocation that has been made to the county in the amount of $2.9 million. The leadership team is working with the City of Fallon which also received CARES Act funding in the amount of $1.4 million, to make decisions based on the community needs and how these funds are used. Restrictions are in place that requires the funding to be COVID related and expended by Dec 31, 2020. The team has made a request to NACO (Nevada Association of Counties) to clarify if that requirement is “expended” or “dedicated.”
Several community health partners reported on their work throughout the pandemic. Lisa Erquiaga, director of the Pennington Life Center reported that she and her staff continue to feed many community members and those numbers are increasing every week. She said the Food Bank of Northern Nevada has provided over 100,000 pounds of food this year and the Life Center has only paid for $1,300 of it. Her staff is continuing distributing to the community in the drive through, including those who are under 60 years old with families with boxes from the Food Bank and they anticipate getting those through December. “We are sharing because we have plenty for our seniors and we are not just a senior center, we are inter-generational.” She is also working on a plan to open the house-keeping program, as well as the possibility of opening the dining room.
Holly O’Toole reported that Western Nevada College plans to for fall semester and will open their doors for students to come meet with staff on July 8. The college will offer more Zoom sessions, social distancing, and will cap classes. She also confirmed that WNC will be bringing an HVAC program online for Spring Semester.
Rochelle Tisdale shared that Oasis Academy is working on a reopening plan with a full committee of parents and staff. Overwhelmingly their parents want to go back full time. At this point the plan is to have the K-8 students to attend in two separate sections, one in the morning, then staff will sanitize and run an afternoon session. The high school students are moving to the Pinon building on the WNC campus and will attend on at A/B block schedule, twice a week in person alternating with online days. The Oasis board will consider the plan on July 22.
Rob Carnahan, CEO at Banner Churchill Community Hospital reported that screening is continuing for visitors and staff. They are asking everyone to mask, and saving the limited supply of procedural masks, asking everyone to bring their own masks with them for regular wear. They are starting to ease visitor restrictions, allowing one visitor with each patient, however there are still no visitors with patients in the clinics.
Banner is still promoting the visitor video conferencing calls as well as telehealth visits. Carnahan said the hospital is focusing on a ‘campaign for a safe space to receive care’ and wants people to know they can come to the hospital to receive medical attention for issues outside of COVID. They have also started chipping away at the medically necessary cases, catching up their backlog of over 100 cases. “Our surgical volumes are starting to build and also the outpatient cases are catching up, and the clinic volumes are increasing as well for all the other injuries beyond COVID.” He gave a special thanks to the community for the generous food and masks donations. “This community has been so gracious and supportive, and we appreciate it.”
Ernst is also working on a modified “Community Day” event to replace their regular event in the park where Social Services and partners give away over 400 backpacks full of school supplies every year. They have decided to hold the event as a drive through event and will be donating 500 backpacks this year. More information will be provided as details are developed.
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