IRON RIVER — Spend any time around school officials these days as they prepare for the 2020-21 school year and you can just feel the apprehension. Preparation activities which are normally routine are anything but this year as schools get ready to reopen after closing last March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At a special meeting of the West Iron County School Board on Aug. 5, the district took one more step toward the planned Aug. 25 opening. The board unanimously approved its preparedness and response plan at the meeting which was held in the parking lot outside the middle school/high school because of the state’s restrictions on indoor gatherings.
Now the plan will be sent to the Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District, which will collect plans from the other districts in the ISD for transmission to the state superintendent of public instruction and state treasurer by Aug. 17 for approval.
Eight days later, students are scheduled to return to the West Iron schools for the first time since March 16.
After weeks of meetings among staff at both Stambaugh Elementary School and West Iron Middle/High School, the preparedness and response (to a student or staff member with a confirmed case of COVID-19) plan was finalized.
The plan and a letter from superintendent Chris Thomson were then posted on the West Iron County School District website.
Thomson’s main message in the letter and at the special meeting was simple, despite the complexities of the plan and the impossibility of predicting every possible circumstance that could arise.
“We want our kids in school,” Thomson began at the meeting. “From what I’ve heard from the board, staff and parents, we’ve been pretty much given a mandate to do this as safely as we can for both students and staff.
“But for this to work, it’s going to end up being a cooperative effort between us and the community. Everyone doing their jobs with personal responsibility and accountability is the only way we’re going to keep school in session.”
Thomson stated that daily wellness checks, temperature-taking and other health department recommendations will need to become daily habits for parents and students coming to school.
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