What metrics does Mexico School District 59 use to determine its activity guidelines? Superintendent Tammy Lupardus shared how the district makes those decisions Sept. 15 at the monthly Board of Education meeting.

The district uses four colors — green, yellow, orange and red — which describe what level of limitations are placed on after-school and possibly in-school activities.

“We started logging like this on Aug. 8. It was the first day we started looking at the data in this way,” Lupardus said.

The district reviews county COVID-19 cases by date, a seven-day rolling average and new hospitalizations to determine its activity level. Lupardus makes a decision on what activity level the district should follow on Sundays.

The green level allows nonessential personnel at activities, no spectator limits, full concessions, while still recommending all spectators wear a facial covering. Yellow is limited to coaches, officials, medical personnel and participants, along with 4 spectators per participant. Concessions are all packaged food and drink and spectators are required to wear a facial covering.

Orange further limits spectator numbers to 2 per participant and there are no concessions. Red is when all activities are canceled and distance learning may take place. Away event conditions are determined by the host team.

“I wanted to make sure you all got a glimpse of the efforts we are making to really try to give clarity to a very muddy situation,” Lupardus said.

Lupardus praised the Audrain County Health Department for its commitment to provide detailed information in its weekday reports and dashboard data.

When discussing the district’s Caring Comeback plan, the district has developed plans for multiple teaching scenarios, she said. The district wanted to find ways to ensure students had the same teacher, even if they had to teach remotely due to a personal or family member-related quarantine. There were staff concerns related to that option, so it ultimately was not included in the plan, Lupardus said.

“However, we have seen organically several teachers on their own take that on and offer to remote in to teach their own classes, either while in quarantine or caring for a family member in quarantine,” she said. “That is really inspiring to us. We have reached out to those teachers when we learned about that. They haven’t used their sick leave and are continuing, in effect, with their duties.”

While teachers are not required to teach remotely while students still are in the classroom, it does help maintain staffing consistency, Lupardus said.

Discussions related to distance learning now are taking place in case the district has to end in-person instruction. Planning is roughly two-thirds to three-fourths finished, Lupardus said. The district office has asked administrators to craft plans around three areas. Plans must be developed appropriately for the grade level, distance learning must have clear expectations of staff and the learning plan should focus on progress, rather than review, which was the spring’s distance-learning model.

“That created some gaps that will be present with us for a long while,” Lupardus said. “Now that we have some solutions in place, we have a lot of the equity issues shored up. We can put our teachers minds at ease. They can do new coverage of content and will not leave students behind that are under-resourced or underserved.”

The district will move toward distance learning if red activity limitations are required, and if there are not enough staff to conduct in-person lessons.

“We have seen that in some districts around us,” Lupardus said. “They just simply came overrun with quarantine situations and did not have enough staff to cover lessons or bus drivers.”

If the district does revert to distance learning, it plans to offer parents a 72-hour notice, unless there is an emergency situation that the county health department says schools must close immediately, she said.

If the district does move to distance learning, it will be for two-week periods.

“That will allow our children that transition time and the opportunity to adjust,” Lupardus said. “We don’t want to yank kids back-and-forth to in-seat to distance learning. That is not fair to our staff, our students and our families.”