Gary Carpenter
In addition to the Lane County Public Health clinic being conducted at VES on November 23rd, ORCHID Health will be holding a 1st shot clinic on Thursday, November 18th from 4-7 PM.
While vaccinations are available for all ages, the primary focus of this clinic is for those 11 years and under. For all the information regarding this clinic at ORCHID Health, you can visit their page directly at: https://www.fernridge.k12.or.us/orchid-health-a-school-based-health-center/
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 7th, 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.
There has been a recent increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in our student population. As our goal is to keep kids at school for in-person learning, we have partnered with Lane County Public Health to offer a free “DRIVE-THROUGH” testing clinic this Saturday 10/16 from 10-2 in the Veneta Elementary School parking lot.
As the seasons change many of our students are coming down with ‘mild symptoms’ like runny noses, coughs, and sore throats. These can be symptoms of a ‘regular cold’ and can sometimes also be symptoms of COVID-19. We experienced students coming to school with minor symptoms for several days then ended up being COVID-19 positive this week. We’d like you to take the opportunity to do a free drive-through test this weekend if you or your child are having any cold-like symptoms or have been around anyone who has been sick. This clinic will also be available for anyone who is NOT having symptoms but would like to be tested “just to be sure”.
Anyone in the community can go to this clinic. The test is a swab in the nostril and the results will be called to you in 3-5 days. There are no insurance or ID requirements to get tested.
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.
Beginning Monday, September 20th, FRSD Superintendent Gary Carpenter will hold community Q and A Sessions be from 5:30-6:00 PM. These will occur every month, on the night of the FRSD School Board meetings (typically the 3rd Monday of the month), for as long as they are helpful and utilized by the community. Each month there will be 5-10 minutes of information shared by the the District, followed by approximately 20 minutes of available time for those in attendance to type questions in the chat. We hope in future months the district will be able to present information on a wide range of topics, however this first meeting will probably be focused on all things COVID-19, although questions on any topic will be accepted. Any questions we don’t have immediate answers to will be followed up with the following day. We hope our families find this useful, please share this with your family and friends. The link for each meeting will posted on the website as they approach. The link for Monday’s meeting is: https://fernridge-k12-or-us.zoom.us/j/88212696504
Over the past few months and as recently as this last week, you may have seen news stories about disruptions in the supply chain across the country, resulting from effects of the pandemic. Industries, including food and foodservice, as well as construction and automotive, have been impacted by manufacturing and labor shortages across the country in ways that we’ve never experienced before.
Students and families can continue to count us for great-tasting meals kids love to eat every day, but as you may have already seen, there will likely be more frequent menu changes based on product substitutions from our suppliers.
Understanding these supply chain challenges will likely continue for the next several months, we wanted to reach out and let you know we’re doing everything we can to proactively address issues before they inevitably arise. Working in partnership with Foodbuy, our group purchasing organization and the largest procurement organization in North America, some of the proactive steps we have taken, include:
- We have changed our ordering schedules to allow distributors more time to identify new sources for out-of-stock products in the event it occurs.
- We’ve identified alternate suppliers and products where we found that existing ones wouldn’t be able to meet our needs. For example, we learned our previous supplier for pizza dough would not be able to commit to serving our schools, so we contracted with a new one that can.
- In June, we planned menus for this fall and began placing orders for food at that time. This process was designed to help suppliers and distributors plan well ahead for stock we need to serve kids now.
If there’s one thing the past 18 months has proven, it’s that flexibility is in our DNA. From turning cafeteria operations into emergency feeding programs overnight when the pandemic hit to serving kids in classrooms and through meal-kit pick up sites through the past school year, our team is passionate about the meals we serve your students and they’re skilled at quickly adapting to ensure that kids are always fed.
One additional note for families with students who have allergies: please remind your child to be sure to check with the cafeteria manager regarding product substitutions that may not be reflected in the menu posted. We will make every attempt to update Nutrislice in real-time, but out of an abundance of caution, please do not solely rely on the digital nutrition panels to accommodate allergies or medical conditions.
FRSD families,
It has become clear in the last 72 hours, that COVID-19 is running wild in our community. Most of the cases are a result of students being close contacts OUTSIDE of school, and being forced to quarantine, OR catching COVID-19 from off-campus events or family members, and testing positive a few days later, with or without symptoms, thus requiring isolation for the individual, and contact tracing by the school.
The process of identification, contact tracing, informing families, and working with those in quarantine to provide educational services has quickly become taxing to our system. Keeping up with the information, subsequent contract tracing and informing of parents is a critical step to reduce the spread but is very time consuming as well. The district is committed to providing proactive and transparent communication to staff and families regarding this topic. In the days ahead, we are committed to:
- SAFETY PROTOCOLS: Continuing to implement and enforce all of our current campus safety protocols including (but not limited to): screening, cleaning, mask wearing, ventilation upgrades, hand washing, social distancing and use of cohorts where possible.
- CLOSE CONTACT NOTIFICATION: ANYONE that we have identified to be a close contact through contact tracing while the positive person was on campus will be personally contacted. All people identified as close contacts will be contacted directly with a phone call, notified of the exposure, and provided information about appropriate measures that need to be taken. Typically, all close contacts are identified and notified within 1-2 days of first learning of the case. Certain circumstances such as complex contact tracing may take longer.
- NOTIFICATION OF THOSE “NOT” A CLOSE CONTACT: Any day that the school is notified of a positive case on campus, all families in the building will be notified via a website post that same day, or first thing the next day depending on timing. In addition, there will be a phone dialer to all families, when the positive case was on campus in the last 24-48 hours. The message will be, that at this time we are conducting contact tracing, and that any one identified as a close contact will be notified. The phone dialer will NOT be utilized in examples where we are notified of a positive case, and the student has not been on campus for over 48 hours from the time we were notified they were positive.
The best ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 include being vaccinated when eligible, wearing face masks, keeping physical distance from others, staying home when ill, and practicing other good health hygiene habits. Thank you for helping to protect your family and school community by following public health officials safety guidance.
A couple key reminders as we welcome our students back to school:
- Be safe on the roads! Buses and bikes and kids will be moving around our community! Please slow down and drive safely, especially around schools!
- If your child is sick, please keep them home. Below is a guideline to use:
2021-2022-Illness-Guidelines-for-Parents-