Parents and members of the Rocky Grove cross country team were able to strike a balance with Valley Grove School Board members at Monday’s regular board meeting.
Parents Mike and Julia Bordell and Missy Seely spoke to the board as it considered an unexpectedly controversial topic related to the district’s COVID-19 precautions – a moratorium on school-related travel outside the district for events and activities.
The specific case discussed Monday was the McQuaid cross country invitational at Genesee Valley Park in Rochester, New York, on Oct. 2.
The outside travel moratorium was established during the pandemic as part of the school district’s precautions against school-related transmission.
Mike Bordell said that when it comes to any kind of activities requiring travel, including senior trips, band competitions, and sporting events, they should be evaluated and approved or turned down by the board on a case-by-case basis.
Julia Bordell appealed to the board’s concern for students’ mental health, saying that as a pediatric physician’s assistant, “what I do now is psychiatry.”
She said that since the pandemic began, she sees students who attend school within many local districts both professionally and personally. She’s also the mother to two Rocky Grove students who she’s seen struggle emotionally with the loss of traditional high school milestones to social distancing and transmission reduction efforts.
The risk to students’ emotional health by preventing students, for a second year, from experiencing the invitational – or any anticipated extracurricular or school event – far outweighs any risk to their physical health they choose and want to take, Julia Bordell said.
Seely said “we can agree to disagree on what we all believe” about COVID, but it’s time now, she told the board, “to get back to the kids.”
Aside from that, said Seely, “there’s more to this world than COVID.”
Board member Melanie Anderson asked several questions related to what restrictions or guidelines would be called for at the invitational specifically.
District Superintendent Kevin Briggs said that while the transmission situation at the start of October is unpredictable, “step one to addressing the travel issue for all students would be to lift the moratorium.”
Then the district would be able to begin working through the several issues at hand to clarify an official position on outside travel, Briggs said. Parents, he said, would be able to start planning for the transportation and lodging they will need to nail down soon ahead of the overnight event.
The panel voted unanimously, following discussion among board members and parents, to lift the moratorium on outside travel and craft specific language in the district policy regarding evaluating requests for travel outside the district on a case-by-case basis.
