Attention Theater Goers! The Midkota Production of "The Internet is a Distract- oh Look, A Kitten!" has been postponed. We hope to have a new date soon.
A reminder for parents and students from Mrs. Brandt:
Jim Upgren will be conducting a Facebook Live event on the North Dakota Academic and CTE Scholarship on Thursday, December 3 at 7:30 pm CST. The target audience for this event is students and parents. Jim will be answering any questions that arise throughout and after the presentation. To access the Facebook Live event on December 3, visit the NDDPI Facebook page. Contact Jim Upgren at 701-328-2244 questions.
Activities Update: Winter sports practices and extracurricular activities in North Dakota will be allowed to resume Nov. 30 with extra precautions, while competitions will remain suspended until Dec. 14. We will keep everyone posted on what "extra precautions" are necessary as we are informed of them.
Please find answers to frequently asked NDHSAA questions at: https://tinyurl.com/yxpohcgq
Due to the threat of freezing rain this afternoon, there will not be any After School Club today at the Elementary School.
Mrs. Brandt has some wonderful resources to share with our community. Below are lists of mental health resources and parent financial aid resources. Please take a look, there's something here for everyone.
Academic and CTE Scholarship Facebook Live Event
Jim Upgren will be conducting a Facebook Live event on the North Dakota Academic and CTE Scholarship on Thursday, December 3 at 7:30 PM Central Time. The target audience is students and parents, and Jim will be answering questions that students and parents might have throughout and after the presentation. To access the Facebook Live event on December 3, please visit the NDDPI Facebook page. Please and contact Jim Upgren at (701) 328-2244 with questions.
A Message from Mrs. Brandt.
Career Discovery Webinar: Life After High School will be held tonight at 7pm by BND. Please see below for more information.
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow, November 18th, school will let out at 1 PM for professional development.
How does the Governor's Executive Order 2020-43 affect Midkota Pubic School?
With the information we currently have gathered, everyone in our buildings, 5 years and older, must be masked all the time. Only exceptions would be removal for eating and drinking. All activities and extracurriculars in our buildings, other than education and learning, are canceled until December 14th.
However, athletes who will participate in winter sports are under the same NDHSAA rules as they would normally be required to follow at the beginning of the season, day one of practice.
We were told that the Governor set this order in place in consideration of three priorities: 1. Keep hospitals open and staffed. 2. Keep long term care facilities open and staffed. 3. Keep school buildings open for learning.
There are currently many questions unanswered and many requests for exemptions and a change of this plan. We will keep you informed as we hear more.
Attention Parents/Guardians, due to the Governor's mandate and our Restart Plan, students riding the bus must wear face coverings. If a student does not wear an approved face covering, they will not be allowed to ride the bus. Please visit with your students and make sure they understand. Thank you.
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!
