RSU 68 board approves reopening plan

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Less than a month before students return on Wednesday, Sept. 1, the RSU 68 Board of Directors approved a district reopening plan during an Aug. 3 meeting at the SeDoMoCha School. The document provides health and guidelines for everyone in the building when classes resume.

“The plan is a lot thinner than it was last year, we looked at guidelines from the CDC,” Superintendent Stacy Shorey said. 

She said the masks would not be required inside SeDoMoCha as long as the transmissions in the community do not increase from yellow to orange, based on average daily cases per 100,000 people from up to five to up to 10. Should the rate increase enough to rise to the red level, 10-plus cases, then extra curricular programs would be suspended for the time being. Shorey said masks will be required when riding on school buses.

Vaccines for those who are eligible are recommended, but are not required.

“We are going to do our best to [maintain] social distance but it cannot impede your ability to have every student in the classrooms,” Shorey said. Three feet is again the recommended distance between people.

Other measures in the reopening plan include continuing with ventilation measures put in place previously as well as a pool testing program that was first implemented for the summer program and encouraging hand washing. Visitors, such as volunteers, will be able to come into the building as had been done before the pandemic.

The Maine departments of Education and Health and Human Services are working on procedures for schools should a student or staff member have a positive test.

“We are going to try to provide as much support to our students as we can,” Shorey said, saying this includes social and emotional support.

“Where we stand right now, we are still in the process of getting things up and running for our school year,” Principal Adam Gudroe said. He said there is still information that he needs to receive in order to finalize how the first days of school will look, and when the time comes in the near future he will share this all with parents.

Gudroe said the plan is to have an open house from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 30, two days before the first day.

Shorey said fitness equipment purchased through the DON’T QUIT campaign should arrive in early September. “I think we’re still in line to have that grand opening in October,” she said.

In late May, Gov. Janet Mills and fitness icon Jake (Body by Jake) Steinfeld, chairman of the National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils, announced that SeDoMOCha is one of three Maine schools to have won a state-of-the-art $100,000 DON’T QUIT! Fitness Center in recognition of commitment to the health of their students.

Fitness centers are financed through public/private partnerships with companies like The Coca-Cola Co., Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, Wheels Up and Nike, and does not rely on taxpayer dollars or state funding. Fitness in Motion provides all the fitness equipment, manufactured in the United States. The foundation’s goal is to build a nation of the fittest, healthiest kids in the world.

Shorey mentioned that most fall head coaching positions have been filled, with a girls A soccer coach still needed. The Eagle coaches are Chad Kimball, boys A soccer; David Murray, boys B soccer; Fred Maddocks, girls B soccer; Jennifer Savage, cross country; Laura Knapp, field hockey; and Joe Caruso, golf.