JANUARY 28, 2022, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
school.”
Once the district is caught up on work,
Perry said she’s hopeful a system can be
set up where volunteers can pass criminal
background checks, submit vaccine cards
and then email schools with times that
they can help. All volunteers in Oregon
K-12 schools are currently required to be
vaccinated.
Teachers aren’t the only ones missing
from classrooms either. Since the return
from winter break, a large number of stu-
dents are being reported as absent each
day. On Jan. 21, according to the district's
public dashboard, 25% of Salem-Keizer stu-
dents were reported as absent — a total of
9,830 students.
The Salem-Keizer district’s public track-
ing of COVID numbers makes it difficult
to pinpoint how many students are miss-
ing for COVID-related reasons. Of the top
five largest districts in Oregon, which also
includes Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro
and Bend-La Pine, Salem-Keizer is the only
one that doesn’t publicly track total stu-
dents and teachers in COVID isolation or
quarantine with daily updates.
Instead, the district releases end-
of-week data on students and teachers
that have contracted COVID on school
grounds, which has skyrocketed since
the first of the year. From September to
December of this school year, 672 total stu-
dents contracted COVID while “ on-site at
any or multiple SKPS schools.”
From Jan. 10 to Jan. 21, a total of eight
school days, 673 students contracted
COVID while at Salem-Keizer schools
brainfood
— an average of 84 students per day.
Despite this spike in COVID spread
within schools, Perry said that the district
will continue to allow close contact extra-
curriculars, such as athletics. Spectator
limits, however, will continue. High school
athletics are allowed four spectators per
participant, middle school athletics are
allowed two spectators per participant and
music events are limited to 50% capacity.
“Every decision we make right now, I
just can’t say this enough, we’re always try-
ing to make it with the north star of how
do you keep kids in person for five days
a week instruction,” Perry said. “Right
now we haven’t closed a school to go into
remote learning, I think that’s the best
thing for our kids and we are really com-
mitted to trying to make the moves neces-
sary to do that.”
Even with the “north star” of remaining
in person five days a week, the district has
already planned at least two more non-stu-
dent contact days on Feb. 18 and May 20.
She said that despite the district’s best
efforts, parents should expect additional
disruptions.
“One of my final comments would be,
just to parents and families on behalf of
our educators, we will see other disrup-
tions in the schedule. I don’t know what
that looks like yet, we are continuing to
try to figure out what the best strategy is,”
Perry said. “The disruption in schedule will
either be because our educators, the per-
son that matters most to your kids, needs
more time to be fully prepared. Or we are
just in such a staffing shortage that we
don’t have another solution.”
Cat of the Week
Names:
(L)CHARLEY
(R)SHELLY
Both Cats
Age: 5 months
HISTORY:
Shelly and Charley are both
grey domestic short hairs.
PREFERRED HOME:
These cats are shy and
mellow. They would do best
in a quiet environment.
WE HAVE MOVED >>> Our new location is 4157 Cherry Avenue, Keizer <<< 503-362-5611
crossword
answers pg A21