School district establishes COVID-19 taskforce

“We need all hands on deck”

By Kendra Walker

The Gunnison Watershed School District has put together a COVID-19 taskforce to develop guidance moving forward into summer experience programs and the 2020/21 academic year come fall. The taskforce is led by Crested Butte Community School assistant principal Bob Piccaro.

The taskforce’s end goal is to develop a Pandemic Response Handbook for both staff and families on how to prioritize physical safety and health, social and emotional health and academic growth and achievement.

Different subgroups make up the taskforce, led by various district staff members ranging from administration, teaching, nursing, counseling and emergency personnel. Each subgroup is focusing on a different category of the district’s functions and services, including: school schedules; health and indoor environment; social and emotional health; logistics (how people move in/out of buildings, food service, athletics and activities); communications; assessment and curriculum; and technology.

“We’re meeting with [Public Health director] Joni Reynolds weekly to be sure we’re in line with how Public Health is operating,” district superintendent Leslie Nichols told the school board on May 11.

While it’s still uncertain whether schools will be back to an on-site schedule in the fall, Nichols said the taskforce is preparing for all possibilities, ranging from remote learning to regular in-person learning to a hybrid of both. “We’re preparing for what we’re doing now” with distance learning, “and to do it even better,” said Nichols. “But we do want to have the optimism that eventually we’ll be back on site.”

The board also discussed bringing an initial draft of the Pandemic Response Handbook to the public for feedback and ideas. “We are very eager and driven by keeping this process as transparent as possible,” said Nichols. “We want a way to solicit and organize input from within as well as from without… and really get our parents and community brains engaged.”

The board considered putting together a written or online survey, as well as a potential Zoom or KBUT community forum. Nothing has been finalized, but the board agreed to have something more substantial put together first for the community to then react and add to. “We need all hands on deck,” said Nichols.