Randy MitchellCovid-19 Protocols Were Discussed Monday At The Regular Meeting Of Allen School Board, Which Didn’t Last Long As There Were Only A Few Items On The Agenda.Discussion During Administrative Reports Centered Around The Protocols, Which Ha

COVID-19 protocols were discussed Monday at the regular meeting of Allen School Board, which didn’t last long as there were only a few items on the agenda.

Discussion during administrative reports centered around the protocols, which have changed recently. Superintendent Jeff Hiatt said the main change since the Thanksgiving break was mandating masks for staff members.

“Junior high and high school (students) are strongly encouraged to do it (wear masks),” Hiatt said, “so most of those kids wear them. At the elementary school, we’re still not mandating masks down there.”

On December 9 ^th , Hiatt made a post on the school system’s Facebook page explaining that there were 70 total students on health department quarantines -- 57 students in grades sixth through 12 ^th , and 13 students in grades pre-K through 5 ^th .

“In these numbers our entire boys’ and girls’ basketball teams are in quarantine and will not play any more games until after Christmas Break,” the post read. “Most of the positive cases have been isolated to a specific grade or athletic sport.”

Hiatt said since returning from Thanksgiving Break, there was a breakout of cases among a certain number of students.

“We shut down (prior to) Thanksgiving mainly because of -- it wasn’t students -- we had too many staff members quarantined,” Hiatt said. “We just didn’t have the numbers to even have people come watch kids. Since we came back (from the break), we had an explosion (of positive cases among students). I say explosion, all in one day we had like 12 high school kids test positive, but we were able to get them quarantined. Basically, 10 of them are basketball players. So we were able, when the first one was positive, to send everybody home and quarantine them. Then they all started calling in saying they’re positive.”

Hiatt said because the other students around the student who tested positive were quarantined, it hasn’t spread to anyone else.

“So that’s why we had to cancel the Pontotoc County Tournament, and our basketball games this week,” Hiatt said. “Other than that, we have very few high school students at school this week. With junior high and elementary school, we’re running 90 to 95%.”

Also discussed was the governor’s executive order concerning indoor activities, allowing four people attending per participant.

“So basically, at a basketball game, each basketball player gets four tickets, and that’s all they’ll allow in,” Hiatt said.

Consent Agenda

The board passed the consent agenda which included the minutes of the November 9 th regular meeting, and the December 4 th special meeting; the fiscal year 2020/2021 purchase orders/encumbrances: General fund numbers 177 through 187 ($34,918.70); building fund number 52 ($750); child nutrition fund numbers 39 through 41 ($7,945); bond fund #6 ($3,916.38); treasurer’s report; and activity fund report.

Action Items

The board approved the only action item, which was accepting the resignation of Felisha Jack as elementary