Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
MERCER, Wis. — The School District of Mercer Board of Education held its monthly meeting in the school cafeteria on Monday. The board discussed safety precautions for classes starting on Wednesday and recommended updates to the district’s policy manual from a policy service provider.
District Administrator Sheri Kopka said that face coverings are currently optional but encouraged in the school building. She said that all the school districts around Mercer have the same masking-optional policy.
Per federal requirements, masks will be mandatory for everyone on school buses. Board President Bob Davis asked Kopka to communicate with the people providing the school bus services to make sure they comply with this requirement.
The school will have two instructional options this year, Kopka said. Students can choose to attend Mercer School District in person, or they can take online classes through Rural Virtual Academy. However, students will be unable to switch instructional models during the semester.
“They have to decide now if they’re going to be RVA or in-person. They could switch in January when the semester turns if they want to. Otherwise, it’s a semester-long situation. They can’t decide in November that they want to move on to the RVA. Currently, we have two students enrolling in RVA for this year that I expect to be there all year,” Kopka said.
Staff and students will still be asked to assess themselves every morning for any signs of illness prior to coming to school, she said. The COVID Clinic will be present at the school to test individuals for the virus.
“Whether you’re symptomatic or asymptomatic, all staff members are welcome to get a test,” Kopka said. “If I were to come to school and I had any kind of symptoms, I could take a COVID test. Students will have that same thing. If they have shown any kinds of symptoms, their options are to have the COVID test to make sure they don’t have COVID or they could go home until their symptoms subside.”
Kopka said that the COVID Clinic will be at the school from 7:45 to 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. They will provide additional testing if needed.
COVID Clinic can test members of the sports teams if required. Another school could refuse to play the Mercer sports team unless they test all their players, Kopka said.
The district administrator said that recess and lunch will resume as normal at the start of the year, so students will be able to go outside and play in the new fenced-in area on school grounds. The crews working for the school will fence in a smaller area for 2- to 3-year-olds with age-appropriate toys, she said.
The board of education reviewed an updated policy manual recommended to the board by Neola, an independent provider of policy service for school districts in Wisconsin.
Davis said that he had problems with the sections of the manual titled “po1422 — nondiscrimination and equal employment opportunity,” “po1662 — employee anti-harassment,” “po2110 — nondiscrimination and access to equal education opportunity” and “po3122 — nondiscrimination and equal employment opportunity.”
“On face value, I have a hard time accepting any one of those without significant editing. I recommend that we enlist our own legal counsel’s opinion,” Davis said.
Davis, who is board president, said that these policies had “gaping holes in them,” such as not saying what should happen in a situation where two compliance officers refuse each other. He said the policies left the school open to accusations of discrimination from potential employees if they were not hired due to the results of a background check. He also said that they provided too much power to complainants and did not have a process for respondents to defend themselves from complaints.
“I had trouble with the discrimination policies,” board vice president Jim Hannemann said. “There were four or six of them. Couldn’t we just say don’t discriminate against people with disabilities, yadda yadda yadda? There was 40 pounds of paperwork that can be summarized in one or two paragraphs. It seems to reflect society, or certain portions of society, taking it way beyond what it needs to be.”
The board approved updates to the manual except for the four policies listed above. The board of education will keep its original policies on nondiscrimination and harassment. The updated policies can be found on mercer.k12.wi.us/district/school-board.cfm.
In other business, the board approved:
—The hire of Susie Walker Hammer as part-time German teacher.
—Adam Miller as high school athletic director.
—Authorizing the building and grounds committee to investigate the salvage and disposal of the auxiliary classroom building that is currently not in use.
