The Otto-Eldred School Board meeting on Tuesday started off with a discussion about the importance of teachers not sharing their personal political views with students, as there were concerns that the students in political courses may not feel comfortable participating in discussion due to fear of receiving a bad grade. The board addressed this in a letter to the faculty, as well as discussing it in the last faculty meeting.

Dale Kirsch, advocacy ambassador from the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA), gave a short presentation on legislative advocacy efforts and why it’s important. During the presentation, Kirsch said as an ambassador, his role was to encourage and support local efforts by school boards and superintendents, facilitate communication between schools and legislators as well as promote achievements and successful efforts of schools and public education in general.

Additionally, he explained that the school’s/superintendent’s role is to establish positive rapport with state legislators and staff, identify advocacy priorities for the school district (i.e.- charter school funding reform), inform legislators of challenges the schools face and what they can do to help, and to serve as the PSBA liaison.

The board also discussed the difficulty of planning ahead in regards to things that are important to students, such as prom and graduation. The board is currently planning for the spring assessments by trying to find the best way to test with six feet distance between students at the high school.

The health and safety plan was discussed. Currently, if the district has two positive COVID-19 cases in a building, they have to close unless they can do tracing and cleaning quickly. This flexibility is now gone and only the Department of Health can allow districts to return to normal operations earlier, however no one at DOH is willing to permit this. McKean County is still considered to have a high amount of COVID-19 cases, though once the county goes to moderate for at least two weeks, the attestation agreement doesn’t apply.

While discussing sports, it was discussed that if teams reach playoffs, they may end up playing schools outside of their “bubble,” possibly consisting of teams that aren’t wearing face masks. A motion was made to play teams that aren’t masked during the winter season if they go beyond the bubble, which was approved.

Superintendent Matt Splain discussed the top priorities for repairs and renovations needed for the schools, including the aging HVAC system in the high school, which has been more difficult and costly to repair in recent years, the boiler system at the high school, possible repairs for the elementary school roof, and cleaning the track at the high school.

The following personnel changes were approved: Mrs. Fratercangelo submitted her resignation as long-term substitute teacher in fourth grade, effective Feb. 11, and Lesley Bailey was approved as a long-term substitute teacher for fourth grade for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year.

Due to the increase in technology devices throughout this year, Splain recommended the addition of a part-time tech support staff member at up to five hours per day at $10.50 per hour through June 2021. Triston Brown was recommended and approved for that position.

For supplemental staff, Donna Veilleux was approved as softball scorekeeper, while Mark Miller was approved for track event worker and basketball event worker.

Candace Vercruysse was approved to drive bus for the district for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year.