Midkota Public School

Good afternoon! It's become a quiet week with basketball being pushed back until December and the decision to push back the date of the High School Play. We will get the new date of the play to you as soon as possible! Remember that this Wednesday, November 18th, is an early dismissal at 1pm. Have a great week, Midkota!

Correction on the Close Up Meeting, it will be Monday, November 16th at 8pm via the Zoom link that was provided earlier.

Attention Close-up Students and Parents!!! There will be a meeting on Monday, November 18th, 2020 @ 8 pm via zoom: https://zoom.us/j/8193122335?pwd=UEJ0SkdjZDJsK0F6bzRxdUtCMzUrUT09

Since Midkota Public School is in Tier Four of our Health and Safety Plan, all attendees to tonight's elementary game will be required to wear a mask. If you are not able to do so, we request that you remain home and watch the games on Facebook. Thank you.

For tonight's game in Glenfield, we can only allow two fans per player/household, and we ask that you only attend for the duration of your child's game. The Governor's policies on building capacity are currently set at a max of 50 people. We are sorry to have to limit our attendance in this way, but we will be streaming the games on Facebook Live for viewing from home. That link will be shared this afternoon.

This morning the Midkota School Board approved some changes to our Midkota Smart Restart plans to help provide clarity. The major change is the removal of color language to identify plan phases. Levels of the plans will now we referred to as "Tiers" so that we don't confuse our plans with the Governor's plans. At present Midkota is in Tier 4 of our plan. Another addition was to add some information about contact tracing as well as athlete guidance for Winter 2020 sports. If you would like to look through these changes, you can find the plan on our website using the following link: https://5il.co/n1ns

Committee Meeting

Updated activity schedules can be found at the following links. Elementary Boys' Basketball - https://5il.co/myln 7-12 Girls' Basketball - https://5il.co/mwnp 7-12 Boys' Basketball - https://5il.co/mwno *Attendance to the November 13th Elementary Boys' Bball game @ MHS will be limited to parents only and masks are required.

What does Contact Tracing mean, and how does it work for Midkota? Midkota School understands that quarantining or distance learning is not the ideal situation that we all hope for. We know that in cases where we must quarantine individuals or groups, questions often arise about who, what, why, where, when or how we have reached a decision. In order to be as transparent as possible, we would like to disclose our contact tracing protocol for you as detailed below.  Definition according to the CDC: "Someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period* starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated. * Individual exposures added together over a 24-hour period (e.g., three 5-minute exposures for a total of 15 minutes). Data are limited, making it difficult to precisely define “close contact;” however, 15 cumulative minutes of exposure at a distance of 6 feet or less can be used as an operational definition for contact investigation. Factors to consider when defining close contact include proximity (closer distance likely increases exposure risk), the duration of exposure (longer exposure time likely increases exposure risk), whether the infected individual has symptoms (the period around onset of symptoms is associated with the highest levels of viral shedding), if the infected person was likely to generate respiratory aerosols (e.g., was coughing, singing, shouting), and other environmental factors (crowding, adequacy of ventilation, whether exposure was indoors or outdoors). Because the general public has not received training on proper selection and use of respiratory PPE, such as an N95, the determination of close contact should generally be made irrespective of whether the contact was wearing respiratory PPE.  At this time, differential determination of close contact for those using fabric face coverings is not recommended." These explanations are used as the guidelines Midkota Administration uses when working with local health departments when a positive diagnosis in our student population is identified. There is never a set time that we know that a positive will be discovered and communicated to us. We find out, when we are notified, be that a work day, evening or weekend. Upon notification, identification of close contacts becomes the priority, and we work until we are able to gather all the information needed for local health to make close contact determinations. For the administrative team at Midkota along with both Foster and Griggs County Health Department this has meant many hours on weekends and late into the evenings. When we have a name, our next steps are to go through every seating chart for every classroom and lunch period in which that student spent time in for the previous two days. Possibly much longer if symptoms were occurring days before that notification or diagnosis. Often, further questions need to be addressed with teachers and students. This takes time to coordinate and analyze. We can only factor in what we know about the student’s day to day school classes and activities. We then coordinate with county health to analyze the data they have gathered from their interviews along with the data we can provide. For every close contact that is identified there needs to be notifications, letters, and then we are able to start the coordination for distance learning for those students who need to quarantine. Midkota Public School has signed an NDA with the State of North Dakota that explicitly states that we are not allowed to share any information with anyone regarding the cases we are helping our local health departments gather data. This makes the matter even more serious for our administrative team when trying to determine what can and cannot be communicated. Once a quarantine decision has been made, it cannot be changed by administration, parents, school board or local health. The decision stands. The only place further discussion could be had regarding any quarantine determinations are with the ND State Health Department.

A look at this week!

Elementary Boys Basketball will play at Carrington on Thursday this week. Carrington school has attendance limits and is requesting that we limit fans to just 2/player. The boys will also be at home against MPB on Friday in Glenfield.

The Griggs-Midkota Titans have two coaching opportunities available. We are in need of one C squad and one Junior High Girls’ Basketball coach. To apply, please download, fill out, and submit the following application form: https://tinyurl.com/y4ppdn8m. Go Titans!!!

Reminder of the early out today for conferences. At the High school, classes will dismiss at 1:00 pm with buses running shortly after that. High School conference directions can be found at https://tinyurl.com/y2b5u8ks.

The Griggs-Midkota Titans have two coaching opportunities available. We are in need of one C squad and one Junior High Girls’ Basketball coach. To apply, please download, fill out, and submit the following application form: https://tinyurl.com/y4ppdn8m. Go Titans!!!

Directions for Parent/Teacher conferences tomorrow can be found in the "Parent/Teacher Conferences" folder under the "Documents" tab on our website. You can also access it be going to the following website - https://tinyurl.com/y2b5u8ks. Thank you!

Reminder to please have one member of your family please submit the survey on parent/teacher conferences whether you plan to attend or not. Here is a link to the survey: https://forms.gle/g2f23NfoUX9S9FwT8 Also, for your high school student, please use the following link to schedule an appointment with your child's teachers - https://ptcfast.com/schools/Midkota_Public_School. Please contact the High School Office if you are having difficulties with the link.

Webinar information from BND and Mrs. Brandt on coding. Check it out! Link to register for webinar is: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5767740442373631243?utm_source=Get+Educated&utm_campaign=c3e6dbc476-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_02_02_54_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f39daa896-c3e6dbc476-49462233

At the High School, with the offering of online and face to face parent/teacher conferences this year, we are utilizing a digital sign-up for parent/teacher conferences. Please go to https://ptcfast.com/schools/Midkota_Public_School, follow the instructions, select your teachers you want to meet with, and select times from an available time list! We hope to see you!!

If you would like to participate in the free testing opportunity tomorrow in Glenfield, please call Foster County Public Health at 701-652.3087 so they can get you on the list. If anyone needs transportation to Glenfield to participate please call the school at 701-785-2126. We are hopeful that we can get some more students, staff and parents who can avoid further quarantines.

Midkota Fall 2020 Parent/Teacher conferences are schedule for this Thursday, November 5th, from 2:00-8:00 pm. We are looking into how we can best accommodate our families. Please give us input by completing the following survey: https://forms.gle/5SrbMzA6Kth2FMJp9 Thank You!