School boards have to do things differently in the COVID-19 era.

“We have two board members that are virtual tonight,” announced Prescott School Board President Mike Matzek to kick off last Wednesday night’s meeting, with board members Steve Sizemore and Tanya Holub appearing behind the board on the stage on the screen.

Prescott’s virtual meetings are by far the best of any this reporter has experienced virtually. The Prescott Performing Arts Center venue makes for a great place for a production and putting on school board meetings in a pandemic can certainly be a production. The sound is great. Everyone has a working microphone, and it’s the way meetings – virtually at least – should be run.

“We have two board members who are virtual tonight,” said Matzek. “We do have a policy on that we adopted last year. We do have a policy that allows us to operate in hybrid mode.”

A lot of every meeting is dealing with COVID-19-related issues.

“It’s been like a fire drill throughout the day and weeks,” said Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza. “We’ve had to make some tough decisions here. We’re asking people to be mindful of the gathering as we move into the holiday season, and to mitigate and refrain from crossing additional families and large gatherings as it will ultimately impact our ability to keep our schools open and our kids face-to-face where the evidence is that students learn better and perform better when they’re in our building with highlyqualified teachers.” This last week, the high school was temporarily in “virtual” mode, and the middle school is moving virtual through Jan. 11, Spicuzza said.

“It’s a very fluid situation,” he said.

School principals praised staff, students and families for adapting to change this year.

“I’d like to start by publicly thanking the staff at Malone Elementary,” said principal Sara Dusek. “They’ve been super flexible in what we’ve asked them to do, many of them having to step out of their defined roles and fill in places where we have holes.”

“I want to thank the Middle School students and families for making the transition to virtual in a short amount of time,” principal Kyle Igou said. “That transition has been amazing. Our attendance has been in the 96-97 percent range in the last two days.”

He said a virtual library has been set up at the library where students can check out books that can be picked up. Also, there’s a library of online books.

“We have made a nice transition so far to our virtual learning,” said Igou.

High school principal Josh Fiege said, “I’d like to each what each of my colleagues said about our staff and students. It really shows the resiliency of our kids to learn under a multitude of models and conditions that aren’t always easy. Our staff is the same way, learning a lot of new skills and polishing those up. When they learn new skills, we ask more of them. It hasn’t always been easy, but I commend all of them.”

Other good stuff!

Spicuzza thanked two donors to the district’s Angel Fund, which is used when family accounts run shorts. Franz and Karen Alpeter donated $3,000 to the fund, and First National Bank of River Falls donated $400.

Trail grant

The district received a grant from the Prescott Foundation to help improve trails at the school and community.

“This is going to benefit the community for generations to come,” said Director of Teaching and Learning Mike Kozmalski. “We thank the Prescott Foundation for bestowing onus some of that funding so we can get the ball rolling on that program.”

The district already has cross country trails at the high school, and walking and hiking trails, as well as single track mountain back trails, will be incorporated. The idea is to tie the trails into the city trail system and connect to Freedom Park.