The Ponca City Board of Education held its regular meeting on Monday, May 10, 2021.

The meeting began with presentations to retiring Ponca City Public School employees presided over by Superintendent Shelley Arrott. Retiring employees include Barbara Cusick, Ronda Merrifield, Dawn Mills, Denise Baldwin, Janice Branstetter, Michael Farmer, Jennifer Fenton, Rob Fry, Melinda LittleCook, Julie Logan, Dolores Schiltz, Gineta Swanson, Nancy Van-Zant, Paula White, Ronald Allen, Sharon Chamberlin, Teresa Fry, Liz Glaser, Mary Jo Haynes, Kristina Jennings, Julie Ray, Doris Rowe, Terri Schultz, Paula Sneed and Carla Webb.

The Board also presented awards for Employee of the Month and Friend of Education. Certified Employee of the Month is Lindsey Wilburn, special education teacher at Woodlands Elementary. A second Certified Employee of the Month was also named: Curtis Layton, Executive Director of Human Resources/TLE.

Support Employee of the Month is Wanda Morgan, Title I Teacher Assistant at Liberty Elementary. Friend of Education was Philips 66 and Bart Snyder, supporters of Ponca City Public Schools.

Superintendent Shelley Arrott shared her legislative update. Of note, attorneys representing 187 school districts with over 400,000 Oklahoma students across 64 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties filed a petition seeking a declaratory judgement against the State Board of Education (SBE) to stop implementation of SB 229 on July 1. SB 229 apportions a certain

SB 229 apportions a certain amount of income tax dollars to the State Public Common School Building Equalization Fund that can then be used to provide building funds to public charter schools but excluding virtual charter schools.

SBE voted in a 4-3 decision during a special meeting to adopt a resolution to equalize funding between all public schools and charter schools and thereby settle the lawsuit with the Oklahoma Public Charter School Association v. Oklahoma State Board of Education.

The Board of Education also approved the Governor Stitt’s close contact quarantine guidelines. The Board previously followed the CDC’s guidelines for close contact quarantine.

The Governor’s guidelines is similar to CDC guidance for essential workers. Students and staff in a classroom setting or classroom-like setting where masking is required will not have to quarantine. Classroom-like settings are settings that are supervised and masking is required. Classroom settings do not extend to strenuous activities or other circumstances likely to result in increased production of respiratory droplets.

Exposures occurring in the following settings will still require quarantine from school: household family exposures. A positive case requires isolation for 10 days.

This decision comes following risk levels being at their lowest levels since school started, they’ve had only one close contact become a case since March 1. There is also no evidence COVID-19 is spreading to close contacts while masked.

This guidance allows PCPS students required to mask in a classroom setting to safely avoid close contact quarantine the last nine days of school.

The district is attempting to get through the last nine days with minimal quarantines while keeping students and staff safe.