The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board held an open meeting on Aug. 26 where members heard from the public about reopening schools, discussed and voted for liability coverage from COVID-19.

Half an hour was allotted for public comments at this school board meeting with 11 people making comments. Board President Jill Reed made a comment beforehand addressing the recent controversy that has stirred online over schools reopening.

“Face to face instruction is a very passionate situation and no decision is going to be right for everyone in the district,” Reed said. “Fountain Hills has committed to the benchmarks set by the governor, which means opening face to face instruction once we have been [in the green] the appropriate amount of time. We are hopeful that date should be Sept. 8 but, if that’s not the case, other options are being explored. Your students are important to us and our staff is important to us. We must do what is safe for everyone.”

A majority of the public comments came from teachers at FHUSD who told the board that they wanted to get back to the classroom in a safe manner and were willing to do whatever was needed to make that happen.

“I am in a household where there are three people on disability and we are really worried about the long-term effects of not only the kids getting COVID, but we are also worried about ourselves,” Dr. Paul McElligott said. “So I am doing things in my classroom like the following; I have a plexiglass screen, a fan blowing toward the door, we are trying to isolate what we can…We, as teachers, want to do it. I am going to be here every day and, by any type of means, we are going to get it done.”

Other teachers, like Catherine Andreadis and Kristina Robinson, asked the board to consider a staggered reopening, allowing younger and special education students to return before the older kids.

Staff member Sharon Monar spoke too, reporting to the board students were handling the mask situation.

“I have been working in our preschool childcare that has been running for a week and a half,” Monar said. “These are three- and four-year-olds who are able to put on masks and take them off; and they know when they are outside they can take them off and when we go inside we hand sanitize and put masks back on. It has really stopped children from touching their face. They are really doing a great job and I want to let you know that.”

Along with the teachers, some parents spoke who were unhappy with the decision to not reopen schools sooner. Meaghan Strevfert, one such parent ,spoke about how the isolation has been tough for her only child.

“You don’t understand what it is like for an only child to be isolated for months, taken away from a school that is more important to her then anything else,” Strevfert said. “She has no playmates, she has nowhere to go. It’s cruel that we are all just think about ourselves. We need to think about our kids and the childhood we’re stealing from them…What is going to happen to this generation? I think we need to look past this and be adults. The children aren’t going to die. Adults might, and that’s a risk.”

After public comments Superintendent Kelly Glass discussed the district’s reopening plan, which is still scheduled for Sept. 8. If the district does not meet the governor’s benchmarks by then, FHUSD will go to a hybrid schedule that individual principals have been working on.

The Board also discussed athletics for the year and agreed that while changes would be inevitable, it’s important to still allow some sort of spectators attend games.

The meeting concluded with the board voting to approve the district receiving liability coverage for COVID-19.