The roads are icing up and very slick. FRSD will be on a 2 hour delay this morning!
Today we have been able to resolve the circumstances from the January 3rd incident where it was reported to school administrators that someone had seen a “threat” on social media. Thank you to local law enforcement (LCSO), and their numerous other partners, for working with the district diligently to resolve this. As you may recall, due to receiving this information in the early evening hours of January 3rd, and an inability to gather enough information to solve the issue that night, the decision was made to cancel school for EHS and FRMS on January 4th. By the end of the day on the 4th we determined this was not a credible threat and were confident enough in the circumstances surrounding this issue to return to school the following day. Since that time, I, along with other District staff and law enforcement, have spent time on this issue each and every day. It is one we take seriously.
Earlier this afternoon a student and her family met with law enforcement. She was cooperative and honest about these circumstances and admitted to making up the fact that a threat had been seen on social media. She was cited in lieu of custody due to her honesty and cooperation and released to her parents. Subsequently, I also met with the family. Law enforcement will be pursuing appropriate charges based on these specific circumstances, and the school district will be doing the same through our discipline/due-process guidelines and policies. The family has been very cooperative and in addition to appropriate consequences, we will be looking for ways to support this student and her family in the days and weeks to come.
A reminder to our students that threats made or reported for ANY reason will be taken seriously and they have significant ramifications and consequences to not only the perpetrator, but our entire community. Thank you to our staff, students and parents for your patience as we worked through this. The safety and security of all students is our first priority. As always, if you hear or see anything that may indicate a safety issue, please report it right away.
Gary E. Carpenter, Jr., Superintendent, FRSD 28J
Tonight’s community Q & A with Superintendent Carpenter will be held from 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm. There will be 5 – 10 minutes of information shared followed by approximately 20 minutes of time for those in attendance to type questions in the chat.
Here’s the zoom link to connect with tonight’s session: https://fernridge-k12-or-us.zoom.us/j/88212696504
Today, ODE released graduation rate data for the 20-21 school year. That data can be viewed here: GRADUATION RATE DATA.
A BRIEF summary of the data is below. Thank you to all of our staff across the District K-12 that work tirelessly to support our students and their pursuit of a diploma. In addition, thank you to the families that prioritize school and encourage the academic achievement of their children!
20-21 4 year cohort graduation rate for all students in the State of Oregon: 80.63%
20-21 4 year graduation rate for all Lane County students: 77.82%
20-21 4 year graduation rate of Elmira High School students: 91.01%
Due to the the district’s current situation, that of having the highest number of staff and students out as a result of COVID, the board has decided to hold their January meeting virtually. It is still the plan to return to an in-person option as soon as possible, hopefully in February (we will always maintain a virtual option going forward so that more parents and community members have an opportunity to attend).
The agenda and notice for this (and all) board meetings can be found here.
The good news is that in December, the board adopted a new policy that allows for community members to submit comment virtually, in the same manner they would if we were in person. The policy can be found HERE, and the administrative rule can be found HERE. The administrative rule has a form (on page 2) that must be submitted by 1:00 PM the day of the board meeting in order to be included in the public comment portion of that meeting. Any forms submitted after that deadline will be added to the next board meeting. When submitting comment virtually, it is important to fill out the form completely and include the attendee name or phone number you will “join” the meeting under so that you can be “pulled in” to the virtual webinar to make your comment.
If a community member would like to submit comment and have it read for them (due to not being available at that time, or a lack of technology), that is a possibility as well. Simply note that in the form and submit the comment you would like read, as identified on the form. Please refer any questions to Michelle Smith at msmith@fernridge.k12.or.us
Comments must be kept to three minutes (we will have a timer), and 30 minutes will be allocated to each board meeting for public comment.
Thank you to all of our families that were in our facilities after school hours Friday night and over the weekend for basketball.
At our home basketball game Friday night, we had the vast majority of fans doing what they need to do to allow us to continue to offer indoor athletics this winter. In addition, I visited TSP games this weekend and compliance was excellent. If we continue to wear masks, and wear them appropriately, it will be a tremendous help in regards to allowing the District to continue to offer these opportunities over the next several weeks.
With Spring sports occurring outside, the restrictions and requirements will be much less for track, softball and baseball. We look forward to not having to enforce as many protocols, with our only primary mitigation being to encourage and enforce social distancing as best as we can. Thank you again for your willingness to do what we needed to do this weekend. Please continue to do so in the coming weeks.
Finally, I also wanted to take a minute to thank the NUMEROUS volunteers that give lots of hours to youth sports throughout our community in order to afford our youth these important experiences.
A professional pest management company will be applying an approved, low impact herbicide to planter beds at each school over the weekend of January 22, 2022. The application is intended to discourage new weed growth in those areas.
In accordance with state law, signage will be posted at each site with contact information and re-entry times.
The district remains committed to doing everything possible to provide indoor athletics for our students this Winter, however, we need support from the community if athletics are going to continue. Below are brief updates regarding athletics in FRSD, addressing both EHS (district-funded athletics) as well as youth athletics that use our facilities (TSP)
EHS ATHLETICS: After a 5 day pause, our boys and girls basketball teams are back practicing and competing. Wrestling continues as well. Many districts throughout Oregon have either paused, halted all together, stopped allowing spectators, or limited spectators. At this point, all we are asking in Fern Ridge, is that folks attending our games are 100% compliant with the masking requirement, that we social distance, and do not eat in the stands. If we can continue to do that, we will stay the course. If fans are not in compliance with this we will make announcements at the game. I will not be asking staff that are supervising to go into the stands and confront individuals who are not in compliance. If it is reported that we have fans not wearing masks, we will simply need to move to limiting the number of fans attending, not allow fans in our gyms, or halt athletics altogether.
TSP ATHLETICS: We continue to be committed to allowing TSP to utilize our gyms and provide important opportunities for activity to our students. However, following masking protocols must improve in our gyms on the weekends. In Eugene 4J, Kidsports/YMCA youth athletics are not allowed in any gyms yet this year. In Springfield, spectators are limited. We are doing everything we can to continue to offer this in FRSD, however absent significant improvement in regards to wearing masks in our gyms, we will pause TSP games after this weekend.
Following these protocols helps ensure we can maintain in-person instruction. Each day this week we have had between 10 and 20 staff out who need to be home with their students who have tested positive or were close contacts, were close contacts themselves (and have not been boosted—which is the new requirement), or have tested positive. Having gyms full of our students and parents un-masked, whether at EHS athletic events, or on a Saturday/Sunday with youth sports, impacts our staff greatly, and increases the likelihood we may need to pause in-person instruction, like numerous schools and districts across the state have already done. Please help us keep our schools open.
Finally, a big thank-you to all the parents and community members that ARE following all of our safety protocols each and every time they visit a campus!
Fern Ridge staff and students want to take this chance to give our board a heartfelt thanks for the work they are doing to help support our district.
In a time when there are few easy answers, we appreciate your leadership and willingness to volunteer in this capacity. Thank you Tiana, Mark, Andrea, Barbara & Jackie. We appreciate you!
Below are two links that describe some of the new CDC recommendations around boosters and isolation/quarantine periods. As I mentioned yesterday, we are currently seeing a spike in cases in our school community, more than we have seen at anytime during the pandemic.
An additional important tip/piece of guidance to share is this: If your student has symptoms, PLEASE get them tested. If the test is positive, they would need to isolate for at least 5 days (and fever free with no primary symptoms for 24hrs). Following their isolation from a positive case of COVID, they would NOT need to quarantine if they were a close contact for the next 90 days (following CDC/OHA recommendations).
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0105-Booster-Shot.html