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5 <br /> 1 Dr. Monique Felder reviewed the various safety measures in place for preventing the <br /> 2 transmission of COVID-19 in the schools, as noted on the presentation. She said there are <br /> 3 more car riders, and OCS has implemented new systems to manage the flow of traffic. She <br /> 4 said the district is encouraging more bus riders. She said Central Services staff are assisting <br /> 5 with managing the protocols for keeping children safe, as the workload is immense, especially <br /> 6 for the school nurses and teachers. <br /> 7 Commissioner McKee asked if OCS schools have one nurse per school, or if nurses are <br /> 8 shared between schools. <br /> 9 Dr. Monique Felder said currently there is one nurse out on leave and one vacancy. She <br /> 10 said in order to cover those positions, there are nurses who serve more than one school. <br /> 11 Commissioner McKee asked if OCS has been successful at recruiting more nurses. <br /> 12 Dr. Monique Felder said there is a nursing shortage, and OCS is working with a <br /> 13 recruitment agency and are offering bonuses. <br /> 14 Commissioner McKee asked if bonuses are creating salary compression, or if it creates <br /> 15 a problem between nurses who have been employed and nurses who are new. He said he <br /> 16 wants to treat everyone fairly. He said this may be a problem at both school systems. He said <br /> 17 it is important to have one nurse per school. <br /> 18 Patrick Abele said when nurses are first hired, they typically do not have the school <br /> 19 nurse certification, and thus do not earn as much. He said this is a barrier to recruitment, and <br /> 20 the signing bonus helps increase the initial salary while the nurse works on the certification. He <br /> 21 said veteran nurses already have the certification and earn a higher salary. <br /> 22 Dr. Monique Felder said the number one concern of the school nurses themselves is the <br /> 23 strain of the workload. She said OCS is focused on relieving this workload. <br /> 24 Commissioner McKee asked if contact tracing requires a nursing degree, and said his <br /> 25 main concern is having enough nurses for each school to have one. <br /> 26 Commissioner Richards asked if the school system is following the science for athletics. <br /> 27 Dr. Monique Felder said in a place of high transmission, the Strong Schools Toolkit <br /> 28 advises pausing sports. She said OCS is not doing so, but does require students to be <br /> 29 vaccinated or get tested weekly. She said OCS also requires spectators to be masked and for <br /> 30 everyone to remain socially distanced. <br /> 31 Patrick Abele said OCS evaluated athletics based on risk using the Strong Schools <br /> 32 Toolkit. He said in the following weeks, OCS will evaluate sports based on the transmission <br /> 33 rates and case counts in the last 2-4 few weeks. He said this will prevent all sports from being <br /> 34 treated the same way. He said positive cases on teams may not be related to each other and <br /> 35 looking at each sport individually will prevent athletes from being penalized unneccesarily. <br /> 36 Commissioner Hamilton asked how the school system is managing clusters. <br /> 37 Dr. Monique Felder said OCS has had 1 cluster, and have had to quarantine <br /> 38 approximately 500 students, with 2-5% were positive. She said with the new quarantine rules, <br /> 39 they likely will not have to quarantine as many students, if students are wearing masks properly. <br /> 40 <br /> 41 2. Capital Needs Task Force <br /> 42 <br /> 43 a. Orange County Manager, Bonnie Hammersley <br /> 44 <br /> 45 Chair Price discussed the history for the idea of creating a capital needs task force. <br /> 46 Bonnie Hammersley presented the following information for review by the elected boards. <br /> 47 She asked if all boards would formally approve its appointed representatives. <br /> 48 <br />