With COVID restrictions slowly being lifted in the area, the USD 383 Manhattan/Ogden Superintendent Dr. Marvin Wade says the district will approach some of their annual spring activities with careful precision.
Wade, appearing on KMAN’s In Focus Wednesday, told listeners his office has received a lot of requests from community members wanting to use school facilities for events now that the Riley County Health Department has eased some of the restrictions, including the 50 person limit on gatherings locally.
“For the most part it’s going to be a no. But we will look at instances like prom, commencement, school performances, other factors, and have conversations between ourselves and the Riley County Health Department about what would be a safe approach for us to have those events,” he said.
Wade assures that the events will continue in some scaled-back fashion and promised they won’t be cancelled.
“There still will be the student performances, the athletic contests, the prom, commencement. It’s just that we have to look carefully at how those things are done,” he said.
Those announcements regarding prom and commencement will be announced in the coming weeks. K-State announced Thursday morning it intends to hold commencement outdoors May 14-16 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
As of Wednesday, Wade said the district has been able to get over 1,100 district employees at least a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Second doses, or boosters, are scheduled for mid-March. Wade and school board member Brandy Santos credit nursing staff and the district’s Director of Communications and Public Safety Michele Jones.
“I know they’ve taken their time out to make sure they are there and helping. The school district really appreciates all of the work and extra time and effort they’ve put in to keep our students and our staff healthy,” Santos said.
While the pandemic continues to take up much of the district’s time, the issue of redistricting ahead of the opening of a new school in Blue Township now sits in the rearview mirror after school board officials in late February adopted new school boundaries for the 2021-22 school year.
Wade tells KMAN the hiring process is now underway and they hope to have Oliver Brown Elementary staffed by early summer.
“We’ve made requests, made assignments to sixth grade teachers to where they will be assigned. We do have requests out to staff about who’d like to teach at Oliver Brown,” he said.
Sixth graders will be in the two middle schools starting in the fall, instead of the district’s elementary schools.
Wade says they will address internal employee transfers, then move on to placing new hires in that building and in other schools. Wade is hoping for a mix of new individuals and current employees from a cross section of its remaining nine elementary schools in the new facility.
Recently, the district named Erin Lopez the principal at Oliver Brown Elementary. Lopez works as MTSS coordinator at Bluemont and Woodrow Wilson Elementary Schools.
