Masks, IT students, audit highlight board meeting

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

LOUISA — Unmasking students, recognizing young information technology specialists and reviewing audit findings were the highlights of Monday night’s meeting of the Lawrence County Board of Education.

Lawrence County resident Rita York asked board members during their regular meeting whether the district has plans to no longer require students to wear masks in school.

Superintendent Dr. Robbie Fletcher said he had proposed to the local health department that the mask requirement be lifted once the county got into the orange zone on the state’s incidence-rate map and the district got below a certain percentage of students with COVID-19.

He said the proposal has not been approved by the health department but added that the agency would likely be willing to consider lifting the mask mandate when the county gets into the orange zone.

“Is there a definitive time? It would have to be at the point when we get out of that red status,” Fletcher said. “I think right now we have eleven students with COVID.”

Fletcher said approval by the health department is not “an absolute requirement, but we would like to have the support of our health department.”

Optional vaccinations for students and having a .5 percent quarantine rate in the school district would also figure into the unmasking equation, Fletcher said.

Also during the meeting, the school board recognized four Lawrence County High School students who serve as paid information technology specialists in the school district as part of a Dataseam apprentice program.

The Louisville-based Dataseam provides computers, training, scholarships, programs and technical certifications to participating school districts.

“This is a two-year, three-phased program in a skilled trade,” Dataseam CEO Brian Gupton told board members. “We look at IT just like you would plumbing or carpentry or welding or any of the other trades that you can receive an apprenticeship certificate from the Department of Labor. The skills and training that these young men will receive will allow them, should they choose, to move into the workplace upon graduation from high school, just like we used to do with our traditional skilled trades. Or it allows them to be more competitive for awards and scholarships at the next level, the university level, or take them into an IT-related field upon graduation.”

The students participating in the apprenticeship program — Alex Brooks, Trey Hall, Luke Parsley and Charles Smith — are “actually employees” of the school district and went through a “rigorous” screening process at the Dataseam level as well as a hiring process by the school district, Gupton said.

Gupton said Lawrence County hired more apprentices than any other participating school district.

Brooks, Hall and Smith were present for the meeting, but Parsley was unable to attend. The students and Gupton were given certificates of recognition from the board.

In other business, Darrell Blair of Wells & Company presented the findings of the school district’s 2020-2021 audit.

“We would like to commend the board for doing a good job this year as far as finances based on the COVID,” Blair said. “I would like to commend Dr. Fletcher for getting our schools’ findings down to a minimum.”

Fletcher said that “this is the best financial audit that our principals and their secretaries have had.” He said that Louisa East, Louisa West and Blaine elementary schools had no findings, Louisa Middle School had one and Lawrence County High School had four.

“This is the least that we’ve seen in any of those as we go through,” Fletcher said. “Congratulation to our schools for an outstanding audit. I think overall this is very nice.”