schools

There are any number of reasons that a child might have the sniffles, or run a fever, or get a stomachache. But since all of these ailments are also potential symptoms of a COVID-19 infection, school districts are under instruction from the State Health Department to isolate children with these and other symptoms until its confirmed that child can't spread the disease at a school, said Rochester Regional Health Pediatrician Dr. Steven Schulz today in a Zoom conference call with reporters.

"Because of low community prevalence, there's a 99-percent chance that those symptoms are due to a different virus, that it's not COVID and that's a good thing and a good place that we're starting out with," Schulz said.

"But because we don't want COVID to spread in the schools and break out, we are being very stringent. Actually, it's the Department of Health that's been very stringent with regulations on what's required to eventually return to school."

If a child goes home with a potential COVID-19 symptom, that child can't return to school unless there is a negative COVID-19 test, and the child is again symptom-free, and a doctor has cleared the child to return to school.

The reason a child must be symptom-free even after a negative test for COVID-19, Schulz said, is because of the small percentage of COVID tests that return a false negative.

Schulz serves on the Finger Lakes Region School Reopening Task Force and is one of the people responsible for writing school reopening guidelines in the region. RRH, parent hospital group for UMMC in Batavia, sponsored today's press conference on what parents should know as their children return to school.

Possible COVID-19 symptoms that could lead to a child being kept out of school include runny nose, congestion, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue, poor appetite.

"There's a whole host of conditions that can cause all of those things, not just COVID," Schulz said. "And so many kids do have chronic conditions, such as seasonal allergies that can have overlapping symptomatology."

For children with chronic conditions, a doctor can verify those conditions and letters written as needed to allow those children to return to school.

What the main focus is on, he said, is the development of new, or different, or worsening symptoms. 

"Every school district has implemented a screening protocol for students and parents to go through before that student set foot sets foot on campus If they screened positive for any of those," Schulz said. "Again, focusing on new and worsening symptoms, in particular, and those would be reasons for an evaluation with the health care provider.

"Obviously, the big one would be a fever. If a child has a fever, they certainly would need to have additional evaluation. So we, of course, would encourage families if there is any concern that their child might have symptoms that are consistent with COVID to contact their health care provider for the next steps."

If a child at a school does test positive, the Health Department will take over, conduct contact tracing, and determine if any other children were exposed and take proper precautions as necessary. If proper social distancing has been maintained and masks are worn properly, it may not be necessary to quarantine other children.

One thing parents can do to help the entire community, Schulz said, is to ensure they and their children receive a seasonal flu shot.

"It's especially important this year," Schulz said. "COVID and flu have a lot of overlapping symptoms and people can theoretically be infected with both. The concern with that is that we could overwhelm our health care system not just with COVID, but also with flu. Both together could overwhelm it even more.

"So the flu vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect you and others around you from getting the flu. And we are encouraging everyone to get that as early as possible this year."

Letter from Ed Levinstein:

I am writing in response to your recent editorial article; “School boards get a failing grade on transparency with voters.”  Contrary to your claim of “group conformity,” I am writing this without asking for approval from my fellow Pembroke Central School District board members or our superintendent.  I want you and your readers to know, I have never felt the need or pressure to seek approval.  Speaking only for myself, but with a suspicion that my fellow board members at Pembroke and elsewhere may agree, I take exception to your article. 

I wish to begin by noting where you and I agree; that school board members are elected individually and that the public has a right to know where we stand.  I wholeheartedly agree and there is no debating this in my mind.  However, our board’s decision to ask our President to answer your questions about reopening school on our behalf, in no way equates to avoiding public accountability. Please keep in mind that the board and administration grappled with this plan for weeks.  As a team, we developed a plan that everyone had input on and is fully supportive of and unanimously approved.  The lack of any disagreement does not indicate that any of us are hiding our true opinions or having them suppressed. 

I would like to add that I did respond to Mr. Pettinella’s email after your exchange with our President, John Cima, where you asked again for individual responses.  Granted, my response was still in agreement with John, but this should not imply that I was in some way unwilling or not allowed to give my opinion.  I believe my fellow board members also replied after your second request but this was not included in your follow up Facebook post.

With all due respect to you and other journalists who play an extremely important role in our society, board members are not obligated to respond to your questions. Your inference from our individual silence that we are being stifled or manipulated is speculative at best, deceptive at worst.  The tone of your article and the responses you gave John imply that you think we are answerable to you and that if our responses don’t conform to your formatting and expectation, then we are being obstructive or just too stupid to understand our “assignment.”  This unfair treatment by some media may be why some board members and districts prefer to have a gatekeeper of sorts to prevent being misunderstood.

As a Pembroke Central School Board member, I very much recognize my responsibility to the students and constituents.  I applaud that you and other publications are covering important matters including the reopening plans of districts. However, I feel you are doing a disservice to the community by creating a perception about our transparency that in my opinion, is not fair or accurate. If you had cared about the original topic, I imagine we would have seen an article that discussed the reopening plans of districts in the region. 

Your perception is based simply on our group responses to a couple open-ended questions that I imagine most board members agree on anyway by this point.  Regarding our transparency, please know that the discussions and vote on the plan were held in open meetings that you and the public are always welcome to attend.  Also, the minutes to those meetings are available on our website and upon a request. I’m also personally available to any constituent who wants to know where I stand on a school issue.

Finally, I want you and your readers to understand that aside from the satisfaction of working to provide opportunities for and improve the lives of children, being on a school board is a tough job that we take on cheerfully but very seriously.  It includes a lot of hard work, long hours, long meetings and is completely volunteer.  Most of us do not have high aspirations for public office.  We just want to help the kids in our district be successful and lead happy, productive lives.  

I feel that it is a great privilege to work with a board that is able to work so well together and I hope that the voters in my district will entrust me for another term when the time comes.  It seems almost out of place in this day and age that a group of elected officials can work so well together, which is maybe why you felt the need to create the perception of controversy where there is none.

Sincerely,
Ed Levinstein
Vice President
Pembroke Central School Board

Previously: EDITORIAL: School boards get failing grade on transparency with voters

Previously: Genesee County central school districts unveil plans for reopening this fall

With new social distancing protocols in place, the Batavia City School District opened all four of its campuses today for the 2020-21 academic year.

In March, school districts were forced to quickly throw together a remote learning plan with the pandemic forced students to stay home, but after a summer to prepare, the Batavia City School District has developed a more comprehensive plan to educate children in the age of coronavirus.

Molly Corey, executive director of Curriculum and Instruction, outlined the virtual learning guidelines for the 2020/21 school year for members of the city schools' board of trustees on Monday night.

At the heart of the plan, Corey said, is SEL -- social and emotional learning.

"There is a variety of feelings around everything we're doing," Corey said. "We want to make people comfortable with what we do."

SEL is, according to the virtual learning guidebook, "the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions."

Corey said SEL includes self-awareness, self-management, being responsible for decision-making, social awareness, and developing relationship skills.

The other key elements to the learning plan include communication, instructional time, and feedback.

About 75 percent of the district's students will split time between virtual learning and in-class instruction, while the parents for 20 percent of the students have chosen virtual-only learning. The remaining 5 percent are students with special needs who will be on campus every day.

The guidebook includes a chart that highlights the differences between the hastily compiled plan for distance learning last spring and the more thoughtful plan for the new school year.

For example, "teacher check-ins" is now "Teacher-led instruction with SEL as the cornerstone of what we do," and the flexibility of daily and weekly requirements has been replaced by a scheduled and planned school day.

"Monitored attendance" becomes "attendance taken daily."

Students, and their parents, will now be expected to focus grade level/course standards using pacing guidelines.

While there were no formal assessments given last spring and grades were credit/no credit, this year will include scheduled assessments and grades and "growth-producing feedback."

All students will have a Chromebook. Middle school and high school students will use Google Classroom, while younger students will be introduced to a new program for online learning called "Seesaw."

To make all this work, communication will be key, Corey said. Teachers have to produce written communication plans for the school year to ensure students and parents have a clear idea of the process, expectations, standards and progress.

"I want parents to know that this is really a true partnership," Corey said. "To make this work, we need them with us."

Pat Crowe, an English teacher at Le Roy High School has retired after 49 years of lecturing kids on Shakespeare and grading their essays on To Kill a Mockingbird.

Photo submitted by Principal Tim McArdle.

St. Paul Lutheran School in Batavia held a COVID-distanced graduation for its three fifth-grade students on Saturday.

County legislators dealt with two law enforcement-related contracts at Monday's Public Service Committee meeting that, as one member put it, are "mysteries" because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

It is unknown whether there will be on-campus learning at county schools this fall, but the Sheriff's Office is expected to provide School Resources Officers to six campuses if students return to classrooms, so that contract needs to be in place.

Right now, it doesn't look like Live Nation will host any concerts at the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center but in case they do, the contract for the Sheriff's Office needs to be in place.

The committee recommended both contracts be approved.

For SROs, three school districts -- Alexander, Byron-Bergen, and Pavilion -- employ deputies year-round and reimburse the county for that expense. Those SROs remain employed by their respective districts.

Pembroke, Oakfield-Alabama, and BOCES use SROs for only 10 months during the year, so the Sheriff's Office gets reimbursed for those deputies' salaries for only those 10 months.

The year-around school districts have continued to use their SROs even during the lockdown, even during the summer, but it's uncertain what will happen with the partial-year SROs if students don't return to campus in the fall.

Currently, the Sheriff's Office has three open road patrol positions. Rather than hire and train new officers, the three deputies who are SROs in Pembroke, O-A, and BOCES are fulfilling those duties, so the cost to the county of not getting those salaries covered by the school districts is a wash.

As for Darien Lake, there's no expense to the county if there are no concerts and Live Nation pays for any deputies put on duty at concerts.

However, discussion of the concert season had legislators asking about the impact that closure of Darien Lake -- the theme park, concert venue, and hotel -- would have on county revenue. The county derives significant revenue from sales tax at the theme park as well as gas tax for people who travel into Genesee County for the park and subsequently buy gas here. The bed tax from the hotel is about a third of the bed tax revenue for the county, said County Manager Jay Gsell.

Chairwoman Rochelle Stein told the committee that based on her communication with industry and state officials, Darien Lake is part of an amusement park lobbying group trying to get the governor's office to authorize theme parks to reopen.

She said Darien Lake has drafted a thick binder of guidelines the park would follow if it reopened.

"They've put their safety plan in front of the governor's office," Stein said. "There is a whole lobbying arm of the amusement park industry that as a group is trying to convince the governor to let them reopen. So far, that has fallen on deaf ears."

Photo: The socially distanced Public Service Committee meeting.

At the end of the school year of pandemic, Pavilion High School graduated 29 seniors at the Silver Lake Drive-in Perry on Sunday.

Owen Kane Sidhu was the Salutatorian and Brett Lubberts was the Valedictorian. The commencement address was delivered by Superintendent Kenneth Ellison, who will retire in the fall.

Country music artist Brew Baldridge sang "Senior Year" and "Middle of Nowhere Kids."

Video by Le Roy High School Principal Tim McArdle.

Music class students, current and former, came together yesterday afternoon under direction of teacher Jane Haggett to honor their fellow music students who are graduating this year.

The musicians visited students at their home or work and played "Pomp and Circumstance" for them.

This video is of Erick Chugg receiving the surprise visit at McDonald's, where he works.

Also honored: Lydia Geiger, Maggie Andersen, Macayla Burke, Gloria Adams, Sarah Adams, Maddie Taggart, and Derrick Fedus.

Not available for a visit: Garrick Havens, Courtnee Yasses, and Charissa Waldmiller.

Parents, students, teachers, and administration at Jackson Primary School in Batavia celebrated the end of the year and promotion day with a parade on Friday.

Press release:

Jackson Primary School Parent Teacher Group is hosting a celebration parade for all Jackson families on Friday at noon.

The parade will begin at Ascension Parish / Sacred Heart parking lot, located at 19 Sumner St.

The parade will proceed up Hutchins Street to South Jackson Street and through the front bus loop at Jackson Primary (411 S. Jackson St.) where teachers will line the sidewalk. There will also be a safe walking zone that will be roped off for those who wish to walk the parade.

The parade will be lead by SRO Jason Davis from the Batavia Police Department. Jackson Primary would like to thank the Batavia Police Department, the Batavia Fire Department and the Jackson Primary Parent Teacher Group for support Jackson Primary.

We look forward to seeing everyone there!

If you have any questions, please call Mrs. Notaro, principal of Jackson Primary at (585) 343-2480, ext. 4000.

Teachers and administrators drove house-to-house in Batavia on Wednesday to deliver awards and presents to the school's 8th graders who are moving onto high school in the fall.

Chua has earned a bachelor's degree in Music Composition from Syracuse University and is working on his master's degree in Audio Sound. 

His primary instrument is voice. Secondary instruments are trumpet, piano and guitar.

When asked for his favorite high school/college music memory he responded: I have come to know such a vast array of humans throughout my time both in Batavia and Syracuse, and I am blessed to have spent time with so many wonderful friends and colleagues. One of my favorite musical experiences was my first tour with SU's university singers. Setnor School of Music has a wonderful choral program full of amazing and dedicated vocalists, and singers have always been a particularly enriching experience for me. In the fall of my sophomore year, the first semester I joined, we went to perform for the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was incredibly exciting to tour the city and take in the rich musical culture of the area, and this was made even better by being able to share the experience with some of my closest friends. Perhaps the most impactful part of the trip, though, was our final performance at the conference. We had prepared some intense repertoire, including Francis Poulenc's "Sept Chansons," ("Seven Songs") which was especially difficult. As mentioned, though, the work ethic of the choir was palpable, and the culmination of our work performing for the NCCO is something that still fills me with immense pride. It was a powerful reminder of how satisfying singing can be, especially when: a. You challenge yourself and work to meet that challenge; and b.You collaborate with people you respect and admire.

When asked what ensembles/ performance opportunities do you aspire to be a part of: I've participated in several choirs while in college and was music director of my tenor/bass a cappella group, orange appeal. I'd like to continue being involved with vocal groups because there's something magical about creating music using nothing but what God gave you.

Where is your favorite performance venue you have performed at?: Last fall, I brought my a cappella group orange appeal to Batavia to sing at Richmond Memorial Library. It was really fun to have my college life and my home life cross paths.

Who are your main musical influences and/or role models? Andrew Huang is a producer/YouTuber who has an insanely massive body of work, both in variety and sheer quantity of releases. He also has been a part of many collaborations, small scale and large scale, with other musicians and YouTubers. I aspire to have his commitment on his mission statement, which is simply "make music everywhere."

What is your ultimate music goal or music dream? My favorite aspect of music is the way it naturally vitalizes a community experience. I am constantly seeking opportunities to connect with people, and often those overlap with musical opportunities. I'd like to continue collaborating with other musicians as much as possible, and the career paths I think are most conducive to that are working at a recording studio and managing a performance venue. Both career paths seem like promising sources of social interaction!

Do you have any music side projects that you enjoy? I try to create regular content for my Instagram (@ross_chua) and my YouTube channel (Ross Chua music). Be sure to follow if you're interested in seeing my content!