Board votes 5-1 to keep extra-curricular activities

Luverne High School students are attending classes via distance learning, but in-person sports and activities will continue, according to decisions at a Friday emergency School Board meeting.
After lengthy discussion, the board voted 5-1 to continue varsity activities for high school students.
Under the state’s safe learning plan, schools who voluntarily move to distance learning can decide locally if extra-curricular activities should be suspended as an added precaution to spreading the coronavirus.
In a roll call vote to continue all extra-curricular activities during the distance-learning period, Board Chairman Jodi Bosch voted against the motion.
“I am all about keeping the kids busy and all about their mental health, but I think we need to look at the whole population,” she said.
Bosch viewed eliminating all potential COVID spread for the entire three-week period as a better overall option for the district to return to in-person learning more quickly.
“Even if we can contact trace, it spikes our numbers again, which affects the whole population — it still affects the numbers within our school,” she said.
“Then we have all those elementary kids who are stuck home now with parents trying to figure out how to deal with them. I think it really sucks, but I think there is a bigger picture here.”
Oftedahl said the medical members on the incident command supported discontinuing all activities while mental health professionals advocated for at least the varsity activities to continue and keep students geared in a school mode.
For some high school students, activities are keeping them engaged academically, said board member Katie Baustian, who supported the motion.
“We know from last spring that distance learning doesn’t work for all students,” Baustian said. “If we take away their activities, it could create more of a problem for some students.”
State officials closed all Minnesota schools in late March and districts transitioned to educating all students through distance learning from home.
Not all students committed to working by computer from home on a daily basis, and many families struggled with learning from home.
When in-person instruction resumed in September, staff and students accepted the new health precautions. Due to low infection rates, schools were allowed to have a shortened fall athletic schedule.
“Kids are going to do what they have to do to keep going to school and keep doing their activities,” Baustian said. “And we saw that because everyone wore their masks here, we didn’t have any problems here in school with people doing what they were supposed to do.”
Two sporting activities — volleyball (35 varsity members) and football (40) — are still participating in the shortened fall seasons.
However, dozens of other students are participating in FFA, math league, robotics, FCCLA, one-act play and mock trial either virtually or in small student groups.
Any virus outbreaks among these groups are seen as traceable, and members can be isolated if necessary and not affect determinate numbers for the learning model.