GALION—The Northmor board of education met on Tuesday night for their monthly meeting.
To start the meeting, Amanda Albert, the PK-6 principal, and Brendan Gwirtz, the junior high/high school principal updated the board on how the beginning of the year is going.
“It’s different than ever before, but it has actually been better than I anticipated,” Albert said. “It’s been as normal as we can make it for the kids, and the staff and parents have been fantastic with all of the changes. We changed a lot of things on the elementary side of the school building and asked we’ve asked people to do a lot of different things—we changed pick-up, we changed drop-off, and we changed an elementary gym into a cafeteria.”
Right now, in the elementary, the enrollment is 466 students in the building and 101 in the virtual learning academy. In March of last year, there were 616 students in the building, so there is a difference of about 49 kids, which can be attributed to families who have moved or elected some other form of education for their children due to COVID-19.
As of right now in the elementary school, there are 18 students who are switching from the virtual learning academy back into the school.
For parents who would like to switch their kids from virtual learning back to the school, they need to inform the school of this decision and then the students will be given a start date in about three days, due to the need to assign bus seats, assign seats in the cafeteria, and do all the things necessary for contact tracing.
“When I walk through the hallways during class, it’s not much different than what it was, class changes are, lunch is, and the beginning and end of the day are different, but not class. Teachers are rolling in the classrooms—they’ve adjusted to the logistical changes and they’ve worked with our kids to understand what we are doing and why. The changes are noticeable during the day at different times, but when it’s a class period, not much is different and that tells me that when we get into the classrooms, that the sole focus is academics, and I feel good about that,” Gwirtz said.
In the junior high and high school, attendance is down by about twenty students. Gwirtz said that this can be attributed to last year’s large senior class of 96 students.
“It’s really been a great start to the year. From our bus drivers, to our custodial staff, to our aides, to our secretaries, our teachers, everyone—people are working hard to make it a safe environment, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else having a better start to the school year,” Superintendent Chad Redmon said.
The board voted to approve a contract with Syntero, Inc. a non-profit organization counseling organization. Due to the pandemic, services will be delivered 100% virtual until December or January.
The next board meeting is October 20 at 6 p.m. in the board office.