Winter weather/road conditions: Our transportation provider has just driven the highest elevation routes.  At this time there is NO need to adjust our release time or routes this afternoon, as long as the temperature stays above freezing.

Please follow this page for any updates in the morning. If there is any kind of delay, routes get moved to “snow routes”, or school is closed, we try to make that decision by 6:30 AM and all information will be shared here, as well as “Superintendent Carpenter Facebook.”

For additional information on bus routes and times, please visit our transportation page.

Last week, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) had two substantive updates to share with schools.

The first was a change to the K-12 face covering rule (OAR 333-019-1015).  This update revised the statewide outdoor face covering requirements.

The revisions have removed the outdoor face covering requirement for K-12 settings.  This will mostly effect district athletics and other organizations that use district facilities for outside events, such as TSP sports and the upcoming tree lighting.

While individual schools/districts  may continue to require students and staff to wear face coverings during outdoor activities, here in FRSD we will continue to operate as we have since the beginning of the pandemic.  That is to say we will follow all mandates, administrative rules and other public health recommendations, but not go above and beyond the requirements absent some specific local metric or need to do so (such as case rates).

The second change was to reduce the quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days for students and staff that are close contacts.

Lane County Public Health is also looking at adopting a new “test to stay” option that is being recommended as an additional mitigation layer that will allow unvaccinated students and staff to maximize days spent in school learning.  As soon as this becomes an option we will share more information here.  This “test to stay  option” is only allowed for close contacts who were exposed in a school setting.  It is not allowed for exposures outside of school, or during athletics.  This process could/would allow unvaccinated asymptomatic individuals who were exposed, to be tested twice during the 7 days following the exposure, and NOT have to quarantine.

Earlier today, the district closed on the sale of 22 million in bonds.  The District sold the bonds to refinance its outstanding 2014 General Obligation Bonds on October 7^th,  and it went exceptionally well.  The district pursued this option due to the current 10 year treasury rates that made it advantageous for our taxpayers.

Overall, the District locked in savings of $1.3 million on a present value basis and over $1.57 million over the remaining duration of the 2014 bonds, by locking in a new borrowing rate of 2.27%.  This rate was in contrast to the average coupon borrowing rate of 5% on the bonds being refinanced.  The bonds were extremely popular with bond buyers – in fact, at the end of the order period there was $123 million in orders, even though the District was only selling $22 million!  As a result, the underwriter, Piper Sandler, was able to reduce the interest rates from the original offering levels.

The high demand among investors was in large part due to the strong credit rating of the District, a level of “A1” from Moody’s Investor’s Service.  In their rating write-up, Moody’s specifically cited the District’s solid financial position.

For the next three years, our bond rate is expected to be at the $2.19/$100,000 level (what was promoted when our last bond was passed in 2014) Following that, the rate for area taxpayers is predicted to drop below the $1.65 level through the duration of the debt.  Below is a chart depicting this transaction, and the savings to local taxpayers.

Today, October 11th, is the first Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrated in Oregon. Oregon lawmakers voted to make Oregon the 11th state to officially recognize this day. Oregon is home to nine federally recognized Indian tribes, seven of them have designated reservation land.  The day is intended to recognize and honor the contributions that Indigenous and Native peoples have made to the state’s history and culture.

FRSD Parents,

On Monday, September 27th, the district launched “FirstView,” a  new bus tracking and parent communications app for your smartphone or desktop at Elmira Elementary.  This launch has gone well, and students at VES and FRMS will be coming home with a flyer regarding this resource, tomorrow. It is available for EHS students as well.

The flyer will come home on a green piece of paper that describes this service, and how parents can access it.  It allows parents to track their students bus “live,” as well as have the ability to receive bus proximity notifications and custom alerts and messages.

You can visit the FRSD Transportation website for additional information, as well as links to copies of the information that is on the flyer,  at:  https://www.fernridge.k12.or.us/transportation-services/

We’ve created a couple graphs that show the number of staff and students currently in isolation (COVID-19 positive), currently in quarantine (a close contact of a positive), as well as the number of staff and students attending school/work every day.

The document shows district-wide data, not data specific to a particular school.  You can access the link by clicking on the top left tab of the FRSD website titled:  “2021-22 School Year”. The graphs are the first link on the top of that page.  The direct link is here: COVID-19 Cases in FRSD (updated each Monday).  We hope this data is helpful to our families in the weeks to come.