Whitman-Hanson Express

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Whitman reopens town buildings

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WHITMAN — The Board of Selectmen, voted on Tuesday, Jan. 11 to reject a Board of Health consensus that all municipal employees be vaccinated in the wake of the omicron variant of COVID-19 and the rise of positive cases in the town. 

It was one of four recommendations from the Board of Health, which met earlier in the day.  Selectmen had asked for guidance from the health board at the Jan. 4 Selectmen’s meeting.

Selectmen also voted against the health board’s recommendation to continue the closure of buildings — except by appointment — until Jan. 25, and said buildings would be opened on Thursday, Jan. 13 and therefore not require remote meeting participation. But approved a recommendation to mandate masks in public buildings.

“[The health board] require masks in all town-owned buildings, including individual work spaces … and, by implication they said the building should remain closed,” said Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski, acknowledging that health officials had not voted on the appointment-only provision.

The vaccine mandate recommendation — that employees would have a six-month leave time to comply, with only medical or religious objection — met with considerable objection by some Selectmen.

“I am against this,” Selectman Brian Bezanson said. “This particular information is before the Supreme Court even as we speak and I think it is a bit premature for us to make a decision without hearing [the high court’s] decision.”

Selectman Justin Evans, as an employee of the state who is required to be vaccinated, said he had no objections to mandating it as he knows of no one who has left their job because of it.

“It was a minor inconvenience to prove we were vaccinated at the time,” he said, asking if the board would consider a strong recommendation with the requirement of weekly tests for those who object.

Selectman Randy LaMattina, who is fully vaccinated and has received a booster, also objected to the vaccine mandate, both as a policy decision that rests with Selectmen and argued that not only is the science changing on COVID, the town could be financially crippled by a lawsuit.

 “I do think people should be vaccinated, it’s a personal protection,” LaMattina said. “Why is this town, at this time, going to get into that, when we know there’s severe legal fights already out there with this, that are in the courts, with people with far deeper pockets than we have from the federal level on down.”

He agreed with incentivizing vaccination, but not a mandate.

“If you haven’t done it by now, you’re not going to do it,” Bezanson said.

LaMattina asked what the benefit of a mandate would be, to which Selectman Justin Evans said the vaccines are literally life-saving.

“I agree with it,” LaMattina said. “I agree that the vaccine is providing protection, absolutely, but if you don’t want that … I don’t see a situation to win for us.”

Town buildings

Regarding the reopening of Town Hall, Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman said no other town he has contacted on the South Shore has indicated they are open by appointment only.

“What matters to me are the employees, and I have not had one employee say they are happy with the building being closed,” Bezanson said. He also noted that residents are noting that stores and restaurants are open.

Grocery stores, however, never closed — while, at the height of the pandemic, they limited numbers of people inside at a time — because they were deemed an essential service.

“I think this board made a fantastic decision Christmas week – a slow week,” LaMattina said. “That being said … the risk is worth the reward.”

He said there has been enough time to see how omicron was going to go and it is time to open again.

A health board’s recommendation that attendance be permitted at the senior center by pods of 10 people at a time, if public buildings continued to be closed except for appointments was passed by Selectmen, but rendered moot by the building opening vote.

Selectmen did vote in agreement with the health board’s unanimous recommendation to require masks be worn at all times in public buildings at least until the next Board of Health meeting on Jan. 25.

Bezanson, however, said he was not “100 percent on board” with keeping buildings closed, since other area towns, and especially the regional school district, are open.

“I don’t see our consistency in our methodology in how we’re looking at this,” he said. “While the district is not part of our purview, it is still part of the town and, for me, we should be consistent. If it was such a risk, those children wouldn’t be there and they’d be on virtual learning.”

Masks required

While he said town employees are equally valued, Bezanson argued Selectmen need to be consistent. 

“I think the mask mandate is perfectly fine because, when you go around, when you are out in your Stop & Shops and Walmarts and the liquor stores, you’re wearing a mask,” he said. “It’s certainly your choice, but we have to decide about being in the building as an employee.”

Evans moved to separate the mask recommendation and building opening into separate votes.

Selectman Daniel Salvucci asked if an employee is in an office by themselves and why.

“Remember that [Selectman] Randy’s [LaMattina] original motion a couple of weeks ago was to protect the infrastructure, protect the workers” Kowalski said. “We don’t want to have DPW guy out sick, we don’t want to have it in the police department. We don’t want to have it in the fire department. What this does, is it gives us another two weeks of insurance.”

LaMattina said he was more concerned with someone deciding their own level of comfort, and their own medical decision on what’s safe for someone else. If someone is in an office alone and are sneezing or coughing, people who walk in are walking into those droplets.

“It’s continuity of a decision-making process,” LaMattina. “If you are going to induce a mask madate, you are doing it all the time.”

Health Board member Danielle Clancy had told Selectmen on Dec. 21 that there have been “incidents” with town employees in recent days, that made her reconsider the desirability for a vaccine mandate.

But LaMattina strenuously disagreed with vaccine or remote meeting requirements.

Selectmen also, in voting to open Town Hall, effectively negated the Health Board’s decision to require remote meeting sessions, which is already permitted by the state until April 1.

“With a couple of these, you’re seeing a drastic overreach by the Board of Health,” LaMattina said. “They’re getting into policy decisions, and not health decisions.” 

meetings

Determining how meetings can convene and noted that the determination on opening buildings would steer the decision on meetings.

“I think what they are doing, though is what we discussed last week,” Kowalski said.

Heineman said he informed the health board what Selectmen had advised last week, even as the Board of Selectmen had not voted on with attention to following the Open Meeting Law. He said he spoke with the health board to ensure, whatever they chose to recommend about meeting protocols, that they were in compliance with the Open Meeting Law.

Senior Center Director Mary Holland spoke about the importance of opening that building to help combat the isolation many seniors are experiencing who live alone and far from family.

“The choice for the seniors to be able to come is their choice,” said Senior Center Director Mary Holland. “The social isolation of leaving these seniors shut out of the building is a greater detriment than opening the doors and allowing them that option.”

Kowalski said, while he favored allowing small groups of seniors back into the center, he argued that the staff holds a responsibility to protect the health of the elder population.

More than 95 percent of people over 65 are vaccinated, Heineman said. Holland said they also have a scanning system to track attendance at the senior center, which has been in place before COVID, so they can track any positive cases that occur.

“I respect what you are saying, but I have trouble opening that door to people who may hurt themselves if they enter that door,” Kowalski said.

“They make their choices of where they want to go … No one is forcing them to come to that building, they can chose to come,” she said.

“The most vulnerable people in the pandemic are the people who are older and have other conditions,” Kowalski said. “And what we are saying is, ‘Let’s open it up to the most vulnerable people because, heck, they are lonely,’” Kowalski said.

Holland countered that elders are adults who can choose what they want to do.

Circuit Breaker flaws admitted

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Business Manager John Stanbrook has pledged to continue providing a monthly budget report and will give a quarterly analysis of the school budget, including transfers of Circuit Breaker finances to the School Committee as the panel concluded a lengthy meeting, Wednesday, Jan. 5, on the questions and concerns that have cropped up over use of Circuit Breaker funds.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak, who acknowledged Stanbrook’s important work in uncovering budget concerns, also pledged greater transparency in the budgeting process to the committee.

“I don’t think we did things right,” Szymaniak said. “I don’t think I did things right with these [School Committee] folks, I don’t think Dr. [Ruth Gilbert-]Whitner did things right … I don’t know if Dr. [John F.] McEwan did or not, I didn’t know Dr. McEwan. But I think we can do better, I think we need to do better. Communication with both communities has to be better.”

School Committee members Mike Jones, Fred Small and Michelle Bourgelas attended the meeting remotely by phone.

“Of late, there are a number of questions and concerns that have come up concerning Circuit Breaker as was first discussed in our November meeting and the administration has been working to gather information needed,” said Committee Chairman Christopher Howard. “That process has been delayed a couple of times due just from folks being out, which we’re continually dealing with.” He said the plan for the meeting was to lay out all the questions put forth up to this point and share the answers publicly. Follow-up questions were permitted as the presentation progressed.

The complete meeting may be viewed on the WHCA-TV YouTube channel online, or as rebroadcast on the education channel.

Howard said he and Vice Chairman Christopher Scriven met with school district administrators in an effort to obtain information on “questions that we thought needed to be addressed.”

“A lot of this material is a little dense – it’s a little thick – it can be complex at times, so really the objective of tonight’s meeting is to try and get to the same place of understanding,” Howard said.

Questions and answers [also available on the WHRSD website at the link: https://p10cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_18535382/File/WHRSD%20Circuit%20Breaker%20Questions_final.pdf] included what is Circuit Breaker?

“Circuit Breaker is the state’s special education reimbursement program,” the response stated, in part among the nine pages of questions and answers. “Its intent is to provide relief to districts for high-cost special education students, and not all placements go where parents would necessarily prefer because of the process schools must follow.”

Szymaniak explained there are some students for whose educational costs are not reimbursed, because their tuition did not meet that standard.

Szymaniak said that Stanbrook had mentioned in a budget subcommittee meeting that there was a change in how the Circuit Breaker funds would be used in the fiscal 2023 budget. In addition to Stanbrook, retired interim Business Manager John Tuffy also attended the meeting.

“From that, more questions evolved about how we had done in the past, what we were going to do in the future, what past practices we’ve used that I’ve learned, now, probably aren’t best past practices, and how we figure out how we do this moving forward to make sure this committee here has a full understanding of this revenue source here, this reimbursement source of Circuit Breaker,” Szymaniak said, inviting more questions. “I’m just trying to be open and honest that I might not have a specific answer. I’m not trying to brush it off.”

Answers not available at the time would be answered at a subsequent meeting, or by a phone call or email, he said.

“I think [Stanbrook], in this role, is extremely efficient and is continually finding some things of how we can improve as a district, how his office can improve and how we can improve communications with the School Committee and the towns, so that we don’t have this problem in the future,” Szymaniak said.

Disagreements

He acknowledged there are disagreements out in the communities about best practices and how to use Circuit Breaker funds.

“What I found from my colleagues, from MASC, from DESE, there is no Golden Rule,” he said, pledging to more effectively communicate options. “People do it differently.”

Reviewing the basic reimbursement formula timing for some residential facility needs cases, was clarified by Whitman resident Shawn Kain, administrator of the Recovery High School in Brockton, whose wife is also a special education teacher, as he had been.

“We’re going to be reimbursed for the money we pay for that student next year,” Kain said. “So the Circuit Breaker we get for that student will increase next year … even though the special ed costs [for the year of the expense] will increase. … I think that’s an important clarification … sometime special education costs and Circuit Breaker reimbursement gets blurred.”

Tuffy agreed it is a reimbursement program.

Small asked how many times in the past five years the district had experienced an emergency expense – such as a special needs student moving into the district or requiring residential placement.

“I think that’s a flow,” Szymaniak said. “I can’t give you an exact number.”

Student Services Director Lauren Matthiesen described her budget process for some costs as a best-guess process based on expecting 3 percent increases from collaborative schools and 6 percent increases from private placements each year during budget calculations. Some figures are not finalized until June.

Tuffy said the district had actually received funds this year as a beginning reimbursement for special education transportation.

“Up until now, we’ve never gotten any money at all,” he said. “They’re phasing it in over a period of time. They actually missed the first year that they said they were going to phase it in because of financial issues at the state [level]. The assumption is we will continue to see that funded as we go into fiscal year 2023.”

Whitman Selectman Randy LaMattina said he could already see the meeting going off the rails before the discussion had reached the half-hour point.

“We’re now talking about special education costs, not Circuit Breaker reimbursement,” he said, asking why the two were being confused.

Like Howard, LaMattina questioned where the district’s best practices come from.

“I’m asking the same question,” Howard said. “What my opinion of that is, it’s an opinion and I would ask everyone to hold their ‘we’re going to accept those as what we should do’ until we actually go through all the information because its simply an opinion of best practices from someone.”

LaMattina also asked if the district places Circuit Breaker reimbursements in an account such as special education stabilization, rather than funneling money into the general fund. Stanbrook said that, yes, there is a Special Revenue Fund for Circuit Breaker in the budget.

“All the revenue from Circuit Breaker goes into that account, no question,” he said.

Stanbrook also reviewed special education expenses from fiscal 2014 to 2021. Overall special ed costs went from about $7.7 million in 2014 to $11.2 million in fiscal 2021 – a 44.95 percent increase, based on end-of-year reports required by DESE.

In the past, it’s been used for tuition to collaboratives, professional salaries, contractual services and transfers to the general fund, Stanbrook said.

School Committee member Hillary Kniffen asked if there was a best practices recommendation for how much Circuit Breaker funding the district should use in a year.

Szymaniak said that percentage amount has not been found, but the committee had recommended that a policy be determined. Howard confirmed that his inquiries to state officials show “it’s all over the place.”

What is not spent is carried over into excess and deficiency per state law, Szymaniak said.

Whitman resident John Galvin, who stressed he was not speaking in his capacity as a Finance Committee member, had several questions about a chart showing the “drastic overspending” of Circuit Breaker money in 2018 and ’19 as well as “drastic under-allocation” of it in 2021 and ’22. He questioned who authorized the overspending in 2018 and ’19 when the report he cited “clearly showed it was not transferred to the general fund” and how it was actually paid out. He also questioned a page on the late deposit of $246,943 on July 2, 2019 — after the budget had been certified. He said he was aware the figure was explained (the last deposit on fiscal 2018 had been delayed) on another chart, but a notation would have helped transparency.

“Telling the truth can’t possibly be misleading,” said Stanbrook, who said his report was based purely on what is in the accounting system. Galvin said it would simply be helpful to add notations on the chart if an additional amount was delayed. He also questioned how it was spent, if it was not transferred to the general fund.

Heated exchange

Howard cut off the back and forth discussion to focus on the original question of who authorized expenditures.

“It’s an honest answer – I don’t have an answer for you right now,” Szymaniak said of the 2019 budget compiled before he was superintendent.

“You should have been made aware that that money was being added to the overall budget after it was certified,” LaMattina said, noting that if more money is going to be added to the general fund in any given year after the budget has been certified, the School Committee needs to vote on it. 

“We’re not getting at spending,” he said. “You should have been made aware that money was being added to the overall budget after it was certified (for fiscal 2021). … I think we’re here to discuss a mistake that I think we’re dancing around. A mistake was obviously made in the way this was calculated — an accounting mistake and then spending.”

If used correctly, Circuit Breaker reimburses the school district to offset unexpected costs and then the bill comes to the town, which frees up more money for member towns.

“That’s not the way this has been done, and that’s the way it was supposed to be done,” LaMattina said.

Stanbrook said the state asks his office twice to certify that the required amount had been transferred out of the Circuit Breaker fund so the district would not carry more than one year’s worth as per state regulation.

Szymaniak said the fiscal 2021 budget, with all it’s unknown COVID-related expenses led to the district being conservative with Circuit Breaker, but still ended up with “an abundance at the end of the year.”

“It was a very difficult time to understand how we were going to budget, even to the point when we developed our remote plan for students, we didn’t know if we were going to be reimbursed for that at all,” he said. Fiscal 2022 carried it’s own COVID-related questions, including learning loss and social-emotional issues. More parents of special ed students were also looking for residential placement for their children, as well. 

Stanbrook recently proposed to the budget subcommittee that the district determine the total sped costs in the general fund for fiscal 2023, and then remove about $1.7 million from that budget and show it as being paid by the Circuit Breaker in the special revenue section of a budget

 “It covers the amount we need to spend next year by the state regulation, and I think it will show a substantial relief to the towns,” Galvin said in support of the proposal.

Kniffen said she is more concerned with the educational opportunities for students that Circuit Breaker savings could be used to finance. LaMattina argued that proper use of Circuit Breaker would enable the towns to possibly give more if voted because you’re allocating the reimbursement in a proper manner. Both he and Galvin fully supported Stanbrook’s proposal.

“You don’t get less money,” he said. “You’re now presenting a more accurate budget to the towns. By not doing it right, you’re hurting yourself.”

Kain also said he believes last year’s budget was miscalculated in an effort to hold back some money for a rainy day fund of sorts. Scriven was uncertain about Kain’s terminology, but said it was clear state Circuit Breaker regulations were not followed.

“That, to me, is the problem,” he said.

“I just think people agreed on the budget last year under false assumptions,” Kain said. “If you wanted to withhold some money for a special ed rainy day fund, it should have been in the budget and subtracted in that line. It wasn’t, and it was voted on, therefore to me, that doesn’t sit right.”

Howard said he did not disagree with anything Kain said.

“We could have been more transparent,” Howard said, but neither he nor Scriven knew where to go with that.

“What we can do best is learn from the experience,” Small said, suggesting a special ed stabilization fund be established and funded.

Whitman Finance Committee liaison to the School Department Kathleen Ottina thanked the School Committee for putting together the session.

“It’s a refreshing approach to informing the public how money is spent,” she said. “The school budget is not a simple budget. … I believe we have the right people committed to the School Committee and to the towns, going forward, who will do the right thing.”

Schools see strain of COVID

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Before the School Committee’s scheduled discussion of Circuit Breaker funding on Jan. 5, Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak updated the committee on COVID-19.

“I think your words were best when I was going to provide the overview – ‘It’s bad,’” he said to School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard. “COVID’s pretty bad right now.”

Of the high school’s 1,095 students, 114 were out on Jan. 4 and 201 were out on Jan. 5. Of Whitman Middle School’s 514 students, 87 were out on Jan. 4 and 87 were out on Jan. 5. Preschool saw 7 of its 99 students absent on Jan. 4 and 17 out on Jan. 5 Conley School had 94 of 493 students absent on Jan. 4 and 82 out on Jan.5. Duval School, which teaches 426 students, 61 were absent on Jan.4 and 63 on Jan. 5.

In Hanson, of the middle school’s 459 students, there were 77 students out on Jan. 4 and 70 out on Jan. 5, and at Indian Head, where 498 students attend, there were 54 absences on Jan. 4 and 53 on Jan. 5.

“Now [the absences] could be for a variety of reasons – COVID related, it could be illness, parents keeping their kids home –  some people could be on vacation,” he said.

Szymaniak said there are some students stuck overseas, where they were traveling, when they tested positive for COVID.

Of the district’s 540 active staff members, 93 were out on Monday and 107 on Tuesday and 108 on Wednesday. That figure does not include bus coaches, after school staff or bus drivers.

“I had 40 teachers out today, 28 looked like they were from COVID,” Szymaniak said. “That could be because of close contact or quarantining or they tested positive.”

Szymaniak said he had a phone meeting with Education Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley earlier in the day during which KN95 masks were urged.

“We received 15,000 masks for our teachers,” he said. “From the commissioner’s meeting today, our masks were not the masks that were MIT certified [for medical use].”

The MIT-certified masks went somewhere else in the state, and a story in The Boston Globe, meanwhile, has raised questions about the efficacy of the MIT KN95 masks and the other ones, Szymaniak said.

“We still offered the masks to our teachers – they’re in the principals’ offices if they choose to take them,” he said.

Teachers were also supposed to be tested as of the return from holiday break, and the district was supposed to receive 730 test kits containing to tests each, but that was changed to only half that number of kits which were to be available for pick up on Jan. 1. The kits were divided in half so each staff member was able to pick up one test kit on Sunday, Jan. 2 to make sure they were safe to come back to school. An open house for teachers was held Jan. 2 to get a test to all teachers who wanted one. Tests not distributed that day were sent to nurses’ offices for teachers when needed.

A Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) decision on the mask mandate, which is slated to end on Jan. 15, was expected to come out early this week, Szymaniak reported.

“We are still not allowed to take a remote day,” he said. “[Riley] said ‘Use a snow day if you can’t staff your school. He is not waiving excess snow days yet.”

Riley is not yet considering the three days lost to a nor’easter in October or the snow on Jan. 7.

“Everybody is putting in as much as they can to keep kids in school, we all know it’s good to keep kids in school,” Szymaniak said. “We did receive a message from a doctor on our call today, saying it’s important to keep kids in school for their own mental health and to make sure we that we keep our hospitals running.”

The doctor said 35 percent of hospital employees have kids and rely on their kids going to school to keep working.

“I can’t say enough for our teachers, who are working real hard, covering and covering, our paras who are covering – everybody’s picking up,” Szymaniak said. Coworkers are picking up the slack in all departments from cafeterias to the principals’ offices, he said.

School Committee member Dawn Byers said that cooperative effort was appreciated, but that she was concerned about a breaking point.

“When do you not have enough coverage to keep students learning and safety?” she asked.

“It’s building-specific,” Szymaniak said. “I think [at the] high school, we can utilize spaces better, If I lose four fourth-grade classes at Indian Head I don’t know if I have coverage.”

“At this time we have not had to combine classes or groups of students in order [to have] coverage,” Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said. “At some schools we’ve had to cancel meetings that were planned because the people who were supposed to be in the meetings were out covering somewhere else.”

School Committee member Fred Small, attending remotely by phone, asked if the district has been able to get substitute teachers.

“It’s a major problem,” both Szymaniak and Ferro said.

“We do not have subs, and some of the college students who came back to sub, four of them currently have COVID,” Ferro added. “So our small force is finding difficulty.”

The district has a dozen dedicated substitute teachers who are working every single day, Ferro said.

“We have some funds set aside for building subs, but we don’t have the people in order to do it,” he said.

Transportation, due to a lack of bus drivers, is an issue as well, according to Szymaniak.

“I don’t see light yet in that busing issue,” he said.

Social distancing is back for lunchtime, as well.

Schools that can distance students at six feet are doing so for lunches and, when not eating, students must wear masks at lunchtime. Middle schools are using extra tables in a zig-zag pattern.

But a problem is evident at the high school where cafeteria tables are round. Last year, according to Ferro, some extra desks were used for distancing students at lunch, right now they are trying to work out where to put desks for that purpose if they are able to obtain them.

Hanson locks in natural gas price

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HANSON – The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Jan. 4 discussed it’s purchasing of natural gas through a consolidation program with supplier Sprague Energy, the contract which is now up for renewal. Company representative Robert Savage attended the meeting remotely to provide information on the positives and negatives of continuing the program, said Town Administrator Lisa Green.

Savage has been working with such programs for about 13 years and Sprague has been providing Hanson’s natural gas for about 29 years, he said. The company has been in existence since the late 1800s.

“We take care of everybody from Gillette all the way down to little mom and pop shops,” Savage said. “At this point, you’re probably very aware about the things going on in the global economy. One of the things that we do specifically is keep an eye on natural gas an electricity.”

After hearing Savage’s presentation, Selectman Jim Hickey made a motion to accept a 22-month contract at .698 cents per therm, unless updated pricing information Savage sent Green on Wednesday, Jan. 5, the town can get a 27-month contract at .705 or less per therm.

Green and the company agreed on Friday, Jan. 7 to  27-month contract for .7080 cents per therm — a price that had originally been offered in connection with a 15-month contract. As Savage had indicated during the Jan. 4 meeting, as a commodity natural gast prices fluctuate all day, every day.

The board then voted to empower Green to accept a 27-month contract not to exceed .76 per therm or less – based on a firm price from another company.

Selectman Joe Weeks noted Bay Path is offering a price of .76, and asked if that should be the drop-dead price for a deal with Sprague Energy.

Savage said the natural gas market is “extremely, extremely volatile here in New England,” because pipelines have not been expanded since the late 1970s, when they were put in place and the demand for natural gas has increased.

“It creates what we call capacity problems so we literally can’t get enough natural gas into New England to be able to provide enough for everybody,” he said. Add in winter demand, and it causes “major spikes” in prices across the board, and could soon affect electricity costs, because the majority of electricity is produced by natural gas.

“All of that being said, the natural gas prices here in New England are usually volatile, but this year, they are exacerbated by global issues,” Savage said. Chiefly, those issues are the COVID-19 pandemic which has “wreaked havoc all they way around.”

Hanson’s current contract is paying for natural gas at a rate of 59.9 cents per therm, and expires at the end of January. Prices through EverSource are currently 76 cents per therm.

“The current rate we are able to offer you is 69 cents [per therm],” he said. “That varies on a daily basis because it’s a commodity, so it literally changes all day long every day.”

Savage said there is no indication the market will be changing in a positive direction and strongly recommended the town lock in another 12-month contract to at least get Hanson through this winter.

“Our thoughts [on the long-term outlook] is try to get through the next two winters,” he said, noting the company can offer either a 10-month (.673) or a 22-month (.698) contract at the same price per therm as of Monday, Jan. 3. But the numbers have now changed, he said.

He said contract pricing for a contract’s fixed price combines the “cheap months” of summer when there is less demand for natural gas, with the “expensive months of winter when it is leaned on heavily for heat.

Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer asked if it would be smarter for the town to enter into a six-month contract to get the town into the “cheaper months” of the summer in order to negotiate a better price at that time.

“The problem is, there’s no ‘cheap gas’ to offset the cost of the expensive gas, and that’s why we we try to include those summer months … to give you a little more control,” Savage said. He advised the town lock in as many colder months, at a better price now, as they can.

“I wanted to go the opposite way,” Selectman Jim Hickey said. “A 10-month won’t get us through [next] winter. … the one with the two-year contract doesn’t get us through two winters, it only brings us to October [2023]. I’m looking to get both winters covered.”

Hickey advocated for a 26- or even a 28-month contract. Even if the price went up to 70.5 cents per therm, he argued, it would get Hanson through two entire winters, putting them at the end of March 2024 before they would be looking at another contract renewal. The present contract has been a 24-month pact.

“I know December, January and February would cost more at the end of it, but it would still make sense, in the long run, to get through those three months and then bring it back at the end of March 2024,” Hickey said.

Savage said that, or even a 26-month contract would make sense, in view of the recent price volitivity. 

In July 2020, natural gas was trading at $1.50 per decatherm (or 15 cents per therm multiplied by 10), as of about two months ago, it was at $6.20 per decatherm. Right now it’s about $5 per decatherm.

“It’s extreme volatility and there’s nothing on the horizon that’s going to stop that,” Savage said. 

Utility companies are already preparing for rolling winter blackouts throughout New England, he cautioned, because there may not be enough natural gas available to produce electricity if there is a prolonged cold spell.

Dyer asked about the potential for aggregation for a bulk purchase.

Savavage said his company treats all clients the same, regardless of size.

“We’re going to give you the same deal, whether you’ve got one, two, three or four towns on board with this,” he said. “I’m not going to change it for you, I’m not sticking it to you because you are one location. We treat all of our customers exactly the same.”

Aggregate pricing does not help responsible energy consumers when giving them the same price as wasteful customers, he argued.

Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said she liked the suggestion of a 26-month contract. Hickey asked how soon pricing on a 26-month contract could be forwarded to the town administrator.

Savage said he would only need to get someone at corporate to let him into the system and it would take only five minutes to get them and would have them by Wednesday morning, Jan. 5.

Selectman Kenny Mitchell asked, in view of the fact that the board’s next meeting is Jan. 25, when would they need to move on a price. Savage said the company’s hedging deadline is three business days from the end of the month, so the town should be OK about locking in a price. But he urged caution because weather forecasters are signaling they are keeping an eye on western Canada, where “the most prolonged period of single-digit farenheit temperatures going back to at least the winter of 2013-14.”

“This cold snap took hold of western Canada on Dec. 25 … temperatures fell to 6 degrees F and averages -1 through Dec. 31,” he read from the weather saff’s email. “What’s in the west will typically follow the jet stream and come  down across. So, behind the scenes, they think we’re going to come across some extremely cold weather within the next few weeks.”

It would be cutting it close, so he suggested making a decision sooner.

Selectmen could set up another virtual meeting next week to make that decision.

Whitman appointment-only rule stays in place, for now

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WHITMAN — Vaccine and mask mandates are being considered by town officials as the closure of Town Hall and other town buildings has been continued until at least Jan. 11 — with all people working in or visiting buildings required to wear masks at all times.

“It’s a tremendously fluid situation and we’re seeing a lot of change,” Selectman Randy LaMattina said. “A lot of us took some heat for closing last week, but it turned out to be a really good decision.” 

He advocated maintaining the building closures until Jan. 11 and to institute a full-time mask mandate in the buildings. Health Board member Danielle Clancy agreed with LaMattina’s motion, and while noting she is not speaking for the board, suggested it could go beyond Jan. 11.

Selectman Justin Evans said the push for vaccines, demand for test kits and a requirement for masks initially tempted him to believe town buildings could be reopened Jan. 10, but agreed the health board should have more time to consider it. He did note the library and senior center provide important social-emotional connections for elders and other residents.

“I don’t want this [building closure] to go on much longer than it has to,” he said.

Public meetings are also strongly urged to meet remotely or in a hybrid in-person/remote fashion for the foreseeable future. The ZBA, a board that “very much wants to meet in person,” according to Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman, is the only board to meet before the Board of Health can meet to decide the issues at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 11. Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski said he would encourage the ZBA to delay the meeting until after the Board of Health’s meeting.

Selectmen held a brief session with the Board of Health on Tuesday, Jan. 4 regarding COVID response guidelines [see below] as well as discussing possible vaccine and mask mandates for town employees.

“I think that one of the most important things about this is that the definition of fully vaccinated has changed,” said Clancy. “Those who have not had a booster and were vaccinated more than six months ago — or two months ago with J&J — are not considered fully vaccinated at this time, and we urge everyone to become vaccinated. Get a booster as soon as possible.”

Kowalski asked if the health board has considered mandating vaccines for town employees. Clancy said it is one of the issues being discussed Jan. 11.

“Like everyone else, we are chasing our tails with Omicron, — it’s coming around faster than anybody thought,” Clancy said, noting there have been “incidents” with town employees in recent days, that are making her — and possibly other health board members — reconsider the vaccine mandate.

“We have discussed it, and we will probably be discussing it again,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I’ve asked for another meeting this month.”

Kowalski suggested Selectmen might be more supportive of it at this time.

She also urged continued vaccine boosters and mask upgrades as people have been known to get COVID more than once.

Selectman Brian Bezanson, who suggested the mild case most people get could “move us toward herd immunity,” and encouraged people to get an antibody test, which Clancy said is not widely available. Kowalski countered that for some, such as vulnerable infants, it is not a mild illness to be taken lightly.

Immunity is reducing more quickly between vaccines, Clancy also cautioned. 

“But, if you get the booster, it’s bringing you back up,” she added. “There’s a question now as to whether they’re going to reduce the time between your shots and your booster. They’re discussing that with Pfizer.” 

The booster may be moved up to within five months of the initial series.

“People are getting Omicron, unfortunately, but they are staying out of the hospital, and that’s the goal right now,” Clancy said. “And we’re asking town employees, if you’re sick, please don’t come to work. Period. It’s not up to you to decide if it’s COVID or not COVID until you are tested.”

Kowalski also advocated revising mask guidelines. The health board had voted at its last meeting to require masks when away from their desks in common areas of Town Hall. They had left it up to staff working in small “bubbles,” and who know each others’ vaccination status and are comfortable with each other to decide whether they felt that they didn’t need to sit for eight hours with a mask on.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been proved wrong recently, so we’re going to revisit this,” Clancy said. “People are coming to work sick and assuming it’s not COVID and it’s turning out to be COVID.”

Kowalski agreed with the need for that discussion.

“Some of us are getting uncomfortable with that definition of ‘as long as you’re comfortable’ you can go without [a mask],” Kowalski said.

“Comfort levels and friendships are not what medical decisions are made over and I think if we replayed that same situation this past week, we would have had some problems,” LaMattina said. “Yes, it’s uncomfortable to wear a mask all day long, but our kids are doing it every single day, Monday to Friday.” 

Clancy said health officials are trying to get past pandemic and into the endemic stage, which means COVID can be dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

Selectmen also voted to accept revised COVID quarantine guidelines, which Heineman suggested they do, given that the Board of Health, which has not yet to voted on them, plans to do so during the Jan. 11 meeting.

“They haven’t changed in any significant way, except to respond to, within the last week, or slightly more than a week the changes recommended by the CDC and the state Department of Public Health … about PCR tests being required, rather than rapid tests,” Heineman said. Guidelines are available on the town’s website whitman-ma.gov.

Hanson requires staff to wear masks when dealing with public

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HANSON — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Jan. 4 voted to impose a mask mandate in all town-owned buildings, effective Wednesday, Jan. 5. All employees must wear masks when interacting with the public.

The board plans to revisit the issue at its Tuesday, Jan. 25 meeting.

“I don’t think it would hurt anything to say [access to Town Hall] is appointment only for the next two weeks,” Selectman Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “And then we can revisit it.”

Selectmen Chairman Matt Dyer, noting that everyone, “healthy or sick” goes food shopping, asked if Selectmen could impose a mask mandate in all public spaces. He asked that the board put such a mandate in place in all town-owned buildings, Jan. 5. He also endorsed a hybrid meeting atmosphere, so people who wish to attend in person may do so at their own risk, but virtual attendance is encouraged.

Dyer also asked if it was possible to obtain test kits to have on hand for town employees, which Amado said he was looking into. A COVID booster clinic will be held from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 13 at Hanson Middle School. Registration with the Board of Health is required for the Moderna booster shots.

FitzGerald-Kemmett noted that is a Board of Health decision, where the Selectmen are in charge of town employees and town buildings. She also sought to mandate mask wearing when town employees interact with the public.

“Ideally we would like to agree on these things and work together,” she said.

The board discussed the issue with Health Agent Gilbert Amado, who reported that there were about 300 cases in town as of that time, but did not advocate additional measures be taken. Selectman Joe Weeks called attention to the report two meetings ago when there were 20 cases in town.

“It’s ramping up unbelievable,” Amado said adding that the Omicron outbreak has led to more people getting tested. He said Hanson has a 12.32 percent positivity rate and Whitman has a 12.18 percent rate.

“It’s up to common sense right now,” he said, adding the town has been “kicked in the butt” by the CDC and governor. He did say the board might consider mandating masks in Town Hall and other town buildings.

“But people are rebellious,” he said. 

He said the town has done a “fabulous” job protecting town employees with plexiglass shields, and sanitizing wipes and lotion for cleaning surfaces and hands. Masks and gloves are worn and buildings are fogged against the virus.

FitzGerald-Kemmett asked Amado about surrounding towns like Whitman closing town halls for a short period in order to get control of the transmission rate and protect staff in the interests of the town. She asked if masks are still required in Town Hall.

“For a week or two, while this thing is getting crazy and the transmission numbers are so high … 300 is alarming,” she said. “We’re in it. We’re in the crosshairs right now.”

Amado confirmed that’s the highest number of cases the town has had at one time.

Weeks also asked about virtual or hybrid meetings. Town Administrator Lisa Green confirmed that town boards are allowed to meet virtually through April 2022.

“Employees within Town Hall have taken it upon themselves to wear masks,” Green said. 

School panel mulls sharing audit bill

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The School Committee, on Wednesday, Dec. 22 decided to table a suggestion that the district contribute to the cost, as a gesture of support, of an independent audit planned by both Whitman and Hanson officials. 

The School Committee plans to revisit the issue at it’s Wednesday, Jan. 12 meeting.

Committee members expressed concern about the funding needed and the added workload on an already taxed financial crew at the main office.

 “From my perspective, I think I would encourage both towns to do the audit,” School Committee Chairman Christopher Howard said.

He updated the committee, reporting that both select boards have seen discussion on their plans for independent audits of the school district’s financial operations.

He said Business Manager John Stanbrook has already identified things that the district could improve on.

“I’d really like to show support for the towns in doing that audit, because one of two things is going to happen,” Howard said. “Either we’re going to get an audit and it’s going to show that there isn’t any additional items to look at, or we’re going to flush all this out – as John is presently doing – and identify things that are going to make us better or things that we need to improve.”

As a gesture of good faith, he encouraged the school panel to take on one third of the cost, with excess and deficiency as the funding source. He said the audits should, indeed, be done independently and the School Committee should get the results.

Committeee member Steve Bois said he liked the idea of paying one-third of the cost, not so anyone could think they are trying to have an impact on the audit, but to relieve some of the impact on the towns.

“We all come together in the end, and I think this is the same type of thing,” Bois said. “We all come together and we’re pulling in all of our resources, they’re pooling all their resources – we’re just going to know.”

School Committee member Dawn Byers was also concerned about the perception of the committee’s motives in paying one-third of the audit cost.

“I wholeheartedly welcome the audit and open doors,” she said. “I think it will restore public confidence in our community because there have been so many questions over the past couple of years.”

Byers, who works in the accounting field, said an audit is going to be a tremendous amount of work.

Howard said he views it as a consulting opportunity from which the district can learn something as the towns are looking to review financial operations and some of the issues that have been uncovered over the past few years. 

Byers also noted there are several kinds of audits and suggested that it might be an idea to determine the type of audit intended.
“We’re trying to get by the surprises of, we have an assessment issue, what John has uncovered in terms of how we’re doing circuit breaker, other things that we can identify,” Howard said. “Let’s get them all flushed out now.”

Assistant Superintendent George Ferro said they also have to think of the effect of all the work now being done by the 4.5 people in the business and HR departments.

“When this happens, it is going to be a massive undertaking, one that we will participate in, but I think I would be remiss if I didn’t speak on behalf of the people who work tirelessly everyday for this budget, do their best … come to work and so this is going to take place, which is fine,” Ferro said. “But I do think we need to reflect on is there the human capacity in that department to do whatever audit somebody else wants and still perform the job that we have to.”

Howard said he thought about that before he broached to topic with Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak before the meeting.

“It starts with the understanding of what needs to be done,” he said.

Szymaniak said he fully supports the audit, as well.

“Tell me what we’re doing right, tell me what we’re doing wrong,” he said. “A fresh set of eyes always helps us grow. … I can’t fix it if I don’t know it’s broken.”

School Committee member Beth Stafford also expressed concern over the additional work being put on fewer people in the district’s main office.

“I’m having mixed emotions about the whole thing because of the fact of putting more work on our already busy personnel,” she said.

Howard said the committee could delay a decision until the Jan. 12 meeting if members wanted to think about it more, which they decided to do.

The School Committee also approved a job description, based largely on one recently approved in Marshfield, for a bilingual family liaison position.

“In 2010 I would never have thought we’d have a need for a bilingual family liaison – we had nine students in-district that were classified as EL, now we’re in the 90s and we could be up to 130, depending on their classification of where they’re at in their fluidity in the English language,” Szymaniak said. “I don’t know if this person’s out there.”

Starting as a part-time post, Szymaniak said one of the reasons it is needed is that there are students in the district recently arrived from Brazil and this is their first New England winter and students are coming to school not dressed for the weather.

“The culture of students in Brazil is a little more rough-and-tumble than American students,” he said, noting that playground games are leading to misunderstandings. “The students are getting into trouble because there’s nobody to explain to a parent, necessarily, what it’s like to be in Whitman or Hanson or Massachusetts.” 

Principals have asked for the service for that reason and others, such as the recent uptick in parents who don’t speak English and the increasing diversity of the district.

“I assume this is going to be a full-time job,” Szymaniak said but he wants to pilot it on a part-time basis.

“The biggest issue is the outreach when new students are identified,” said Ferro, who added that the need for additional staff will also be looked at because the district is “running thin.” 

“This is just the link back to the family to make them comfortable,” he said.

Budgeting to pay for the position is the next step, Szymaniak said.

A dress code change would allow students to wear “multiple types of headgear without restriction” except for obscene and profane language was also approved.

Principal Dr. Christopher Jones said the change started with allowing students to wear do-rags, bonnets and other headcoverings of that type and is expanding to include baseball caps in the interest of having an equitable policy.

Byers congratulated Jones for bringing the change forward and voiced her approval for it.

“My concern is still going back to the original dress code policy that we have,” she said. Part of the handbook guidelines are not enforceable because the district does not have a policy per se, she said.

The policy committee is looking at the dress code in their work this year.

“As we became a more diverse community, it came to our attention that some students were wearing do-rags in school and were sent down [to the office for discipline] for violating the handbook for having headcoverings,” he said. “In speaking to and listening to those students and then educating ourselves … we came to the conclusion that we needed to do something about it as far as allowing them to wear do-rags.”

He said enforcing policy can be tricky because violations have to be proven to cause a disturbance to the educational environment.

Several surrounding districts either allow hats and sweatshirt hoods, or still have dress codes prohibiting the headgear, but look the other way. Jones said that rather that have an unenforced dress code, it should be revised. W-H will not be permitting hoods at this time.

COVID test kits in demand

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WHITMAN — Four hundred residents managed to obtain free COVID-19 at-home test kits at a town-sponsored distribution Friday, Dec. 31 at Whitman Middle School.

Fire Chief Timothy Clancy noted that the Board of Selectmen had discussed to possibility of operating a drive-through testing site at its Dec. 21 meeting, but when the logistics of supply and demand were considered, it was “pretty obvious that we were going to be unable to pull that together in a timely manner.”

Each vehicle was given a test kit containing two tests.

A very limited number of kits were also distributed to the Housing Authority and Meals on Wheels volunteers to distribute among the elderly and homebound.

“I think we should be proud, honestly, of the fact that we’re one of very few municipalities, to my knowledge, that were able to locate some at-home rapid tests for people who had not received them for free from the state government,” Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman said Monday, Jan. 3. “We … as a team located some tests, got them here quickly and that distribution happened pretty successfully on Friday.”

Heineman said the 400 given out were “not as many as we’d like,” but that as many as the town could get delivered on short notice.

“We have some more on the way,” he said. “We’ve been desperately trying to get some indication from the manufacturer about when they will be received.”

County Treasurer Thomas O’Brien has also sent word to Whitman officials that the County Commissioners approves about 100,000 home test kits late last week to be sent to county communities. Whitman could receive as many as 10,000 kits.

The state had recently made kits available to cities and towns with a higher population of people living below the federal poverty line instead of where the pandemic spike was worst, such as Bristol and Plymouth counties. Test kits at pharmacies have been selling for about $25 each. 

“This has been a whole effort from the town of Whitman,” Selectman Justin Evans said. “Selectmen voted to authorize this last week and gave sort of control of the operation to the fire chief [and] to the health department and let them (Selectmen”) authorize the spending but let them figure out how to make it happen.”

Discussions taking place between town officials in the interim led to the decision to buy home testing kits to distribute as the best way to address the immediate need.

The distribution plan was modified from a plan retired Fire Chief Timothy Grenno had mapped out for a potential drive-through vaccination site more than a year ago, but which was never needed.

“It took a little bit of an effort to acquire what we did,” Clancy said. “To get those kits that day was a solid eight-plus hours on the internet. We found them.”

Cars were allowed onto Corthell Avenue only and directed through a series of stops to show proof of residency, obtain a control number for their vehicle windshield and a flier on tests result and booster clinic information before being directed around to the rear of the school. The fliers also asked recipients to inform the Board of Health if they receive a positive test result.

“We have checks and double-checks,” Clancy said. “We’re trying to do as many people in town as is possible without inconveniencing anyone. People don’t want to be sitting in line for three or four hours only to be told, ‘Hey, we don’t have any more.’”

Residents were funneled into one of three lanes where the control number was retrieved and they were handed test kits. The vehicles exited out onto Hogg Memorial Drive.

Police Chief Timothy Hanlon said there was no estimate as to how many people would show up to the distribution event as he helped check people in.

“There’s no way to predict that,” Hanlon said.

“It’s working so far,” Clancy said an hour into the two-hour event. “We sat down to figure out where we had an access for in and out. We’ve learned from some of the other communities around us that have had some difficulties handing these out. You need to have traffic flow. You need to have it designed so the traffic just keeps moving.”

Nothing about COVID is free from controversy of some kind, however, and the number of kits available in relation to demand in Whitman raised an issue on social media.

“When Whitman was not selected to receive tests from the state, we sourced our own with American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds and distributed them with the help of Fire, Police, WEMA, CERT, [the] Board of Health and the DPW,” Evans posted on Instagram later that day.

A reply to Evans’ Instagram post expressed frustration with the number of residents who showed up to line up their vehicles long before the 9 a.m. start time.

“I was all the way back in the line when they said there were no more [test kits],” one man wrote. “Thank God I found some at Walgreen’s in Fall River.”

He complained that, as a taxpayer, he felt it should mean he would be able to obtain a kit at the residents-only distribution Whitman held.

“We have more on order and plan more distribution events,” Evans replied. “But this was all we could get [with] rush shipping before the end of school vacation.”

Some residents have had success in obtaining the kits at CVS, where customers are directed to inquire at the front counter.

“We’re still on a steady increase in our percentage numbers,” Clancy said. He has consulted with health officials and has found that positivity numbers did not take into account the number of home tests being performed already.

The vaccination rate, meanwhile has increased only by about 1 percent, more or less, according to Clancy. It’s hard to track because people also receive vaccinations when they travel.

With so many showing up for test kit distribution, is there a drive-through test site in the future?

“As of right now, we have no plans for a drive-through testing site,” Clancy said. “We’re doing this instead of, because the logistics of the drive-through test site … It became apparent it was going to be very more complex.”

He said there is a plan in place for it, but the logistics of it were difficult.

“[With] this, we have a good idea — there’s a good plan from the team to get this to run through,” he said.

Omicron closes Whitman town buildings

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WHITMAN – The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Dec. 21 voted to close and limit access to Town Hall and other town-owned buildings to appointment-only business as of Monday, Dec. 27 for a minimum of two weeks – as well as to establish a testing site as soon as the state can furnish testing supplies, in the face of the fast-spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Selectmen will revisit the issue on Tuesday, Jan. 4.

Staff would be in the buildings at socially safe distances, with office phone numbers posted at doors. Simple transactions could be handled at the door or bringing the resident in to larger spaces in Town Hall to help them.

Selectmen also asked that the Board of Health consider mandating masks in town-owned buildings, as well as revisiting vaccination mandates as federal courts and agencies have not agreed on the issue.

Scheduled interviews with finalists for the assistant town administrator position were postponed until 6 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 4.

“From everything we’ve heard on the news, we’re about to hit a pretty big wave of Omicron,” said Selectman Randy LaMattina. “My question was, should we try to get in front of it tonight and do what we can to protect our infrastructure – protect our employees, possibly?”

He suggested going into a two-week “bunkered-down situation” with Christmas as the starting point and limiting interaction with employees and closing town buildings – Town Hall, the library, senior center, DPW, police and fire stations. In the meantime, he suggested the town work on getting a testing site ready for residents.

“For the last seven weeks, our positivity rate has risen week-to-week,” said Town Administrator Lincoln Heineman. “These past two weeks … it is about 10 percent, so it has plateaued a little bit in the last two weeks, but plateaued at a pretty alarming rate.”

Heineman added the Health Inspector Daniel Kelly polled the board’s members about closing building to appointment-only status and said perhaps two weeks was not long enough. A third member also supported it.

Scheduled vaccinations has continued to “creep up” by about 1 percent per week, he said. The town is now 63 percent fully vaccinated.

“It’s cranking along,” Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Timothy Clancy said. “We see the numbers, I send them to you every week. … We’re concerned about the infrastructure. If it comes through the Town Hall, we’re crippled – and our police, fire and DPW, as well as the library. If it gets into our buildings, it’s going to cripple us and the effects could be devastating to the town.”

Booster clinics

Chief Clancy, the town’s COVID-19 clinical coordinator and health officials have worked to made sure booster clinics, with more than 300 residents receiving their booster shots in the past two weeks. Upcoming clinics – 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Jan. 5 and from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m., Jan. 20 – can be signed up for on the town’s newly redesigned website. The state has purchased rapid tests for communities where a qualifying percentage of residents are below the federal poverty line. Whitman is not one of those communities, but the town will be able to purchase the much cheaper rapid tests by January.

Clancy said a drive-in test facility, if that’s what the town prefers, could be set up after the New Year. 

“My only concern is that there is a limit on them right now,” Clancy said of the tests. “If we are looking to buy the ones the state is going to provide, I think we’re pushing this down the road a little bit.” 

Clancy added they can get the tests on hand to the town’s high-risk residents in the meantime.

Heineman has been discussing with health officials whether Whitman should purchase some of those tests for residents and whether the town wants to use American Rescue Plan funds for that.

“That would be the natural source of funds,” he said.

President Biden announced earlier in the day that the federal government “is prepared today for what’s coming” with enough gowns, masks and ventilators (PPE) to deal with the surge in hospitalizations among the unvaccinated, and plans to reinforce hospitals.

Vaccination and booster shot efforts have been stepped up “significantly,” the president said, and more than 20,000 free testing sites have been set up nationally, and the Defense Production Act has been used to spend more than $3 billion to purchase enough at-home testing kits for purchase at the pharmacy or online. Hospital-administered PCR tests will be covered by insurance. National Guard troops are also being deployed to support, and FEMA ordered to provide additional hospital beds, ambulances and EMTs to overwhelmed hospitals and first responders.

Starting in January, private insurance will also cover at-home testing by private insurance via reimbursement, Biden said. The federal government also moved to set up emergency testing sites in areas that need additional testing capacity – the first in New York City. Google search for more information by: “COVID tests near me.”

Another 500 million free, at-home rapid test kits have been ordered by the federal government, with delivery also starting in January. 

A federal court order for requiring vaccination or test orders for employees and adult school staffs are being used to support businesses and K-12 schools to keep them open based on a “test to stay” CDC order.

Selectman Brian Bezanson said he listened to the president’s speech Tuesday about Omicron and the home test kits being made available.

“I thought that’s a great opportunity, because I’ve tried to get some (testing kits) for the last two weeks and, though I did end up getting some for family members, they are scarce,” he said. “It’s good news.”

Selectmen also discussed the option of using its ARPA funds to purchase its own test kits to distribute to residents.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Bezanson said.

LaMattina said his only concern was in how the town would be able to do contact tracing. Selectman Dan Salvucci asked if the whole issue shouldn’t be addressed in concert with the Board of Health.

“How do we track positivity rates? That’s what scares me about the home [tests],” he said.

Bezanson suggested taking a page from the Fire Department’s notebook and have firefighters administer tests, which would make contact tracing easier.

Clancy said he had already spoken to Heineman about that issue.

Test kits

“My main concern with home test kits is there’s a 15 percent false positive,” Clancy said. “I would not want people doing home test kits thinking they can go to a family function and they’re great, when in all actuality there’s maybe that 15 percent chance that they’re not. … We’d be able to track them if we were doing, but it would be an undertaking – but that’s OK.”

Of a possible drive-up rapid test, Clancy said it could be done and he has plans already laid out for that type of thing. He just needs to know how many tests, and how long they would be used, The PCR test is the “Golden Rule” of COVID tests, according to Clancy.

Selectman Justin Evans said the odds of two false positives is about 2 percent, and the home tests are supposed to be done twice over two or three days.

“That brings it right in line with the PCR test,” he said. PCR tests are not likely to mean people will wait at home two or three days for the results.

“This is [the Board of Health’s] territory, basically,” Salvucci said.

Selectmen Chairman Dr. Carl Kowalski asked if the health board had been discussing the variant and its implicatons.

“The  Board of Health needs to be involved,” Kowalski said.

Member Dawn Varley, who attended the Selectmen’s meeting said that panel wouldn’t meet until Dec. 30.

LaMattina said the board was giving the Board of Health time to meet with the fire chief and develop a plan as they “limit the battlefield.”

Varley also said, as Town Clerk, she does not feel comfortable having her staff meeting with people at the doors in the dark when offices were closed before.

“It made our work harder,” she said of the need to run from door to door.

“It’s nine days,” Bezason said. “That’s all it is – and it’s a holiday week when, probably, not a lot goes on.”

“When all COVID spending is considered, after Dec. 31, there’s a difference how we, as a town, should look at it,” Heineman said. CARES Act money must be spent before the stroke-of-midnight end of 2021 on Dec. 31, and they must be spent on COVID response issues. ARPA funds passed earlier this year, may be spent on a broader context of things, according to Heineman. He envisions one of those “other things” would be in providing great relief to sewer rate payers to reduce the amount of money needed to be borrowed and paid for the sewer force main project.

“Obviously, public health is paramount, and obviously, whatever is the wise public health decision to address COVID, I think almost everyone would agree, should be the primary use of the ARPA money,” Heineman said.

Bezanson said reporting he has heard from South Africa indicates the wave may last about three weeks.

The Fire Department has about 140 tests in stock as of Dec. 21, for which the department paid nearly $25 per test kit, but about a week and a half ago, the state put out a mass procurement request for tests, but Heineman said he does not think a response has come back yet.

“I’m not sure that they’re $5,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been promised by the state Department of Public Health, but frankly, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Heineman also said the rapid tests coming from the federal government are less expensive than those on the market today, but also will not be available until January, and are therefore ineligible for CARES Act funding.

Biden’s advice to Americans also includes vaccinations.

“If you’re not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned, you’re at a high risk of getting sick and, if you’re sick you’re at a high risk of spreading it to others, including friends and family,” Biden said. “The unvaccinated have a significantly higher risk of ending up in a hospital, or even dying.”

The president stressed that almost everyone who has died during the course of the pandemic since March 2020 has been unvaccinated. While some fully vaccinated people will contract COVID, because Omicron spreads so easily, he said, such cases are highly unlikely to lead to serious illness. Getting the booster shot reduces the reason for concern.

Fully vaccinated people are advised to wear properly fitting, secure masks indoors and in public settings – preferably N-95 masks.

Anxious times for students

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Student safety and COVID were addressed by district officials during the W-H Regional School Committee meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 22. Both have been the subject of concern among the high school’s student body in recent days, according to student representative Anna Flynn,

“We’ve had some serious issues around student safety the past couple of weeks,” said Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Szymaniak, noting the Monday, Dec. 6 indirect threat to schools on the South Shore posted on the social media site Snapchat. A police investigation narrowed any credible threats to Brockton and Taunton high schools.

“Whitman-Hanson was not on this alleged Snapchat,” Szymaniak said, noting he also received an email from the Brockton High principal concerning an increase of safety. “We have an outstanding relationship with our school resource officers and our police departments, and they brought a police presence to the high school, which was nice.”

He said that presence “wasn’t huge, so cruisers were not evident everywhere” – it was, rather, very discreet – but there were officers on campus as students arrived. Principal Dr. Christopher Jones was away dealing with a family issue in Connecticut and Szymaniak was home with COVID and communicating by phone with the district and public safety officials.

“Later that morning, [Assistant Superintendent George] Ferro was in charge, with [Assistant Principal David] Floeck, running a tight ship,” Szymaniak said. “Later, I got a call – and this is important – some students took a photograph off of Snapchat or Instagram, of another student who was playing airsoft (a team game similar to paintball) in the summer, and he was dressed in full cammo. They put a tag under it ‘Don’t come to school today.’”

The student in the photo had nothing to do with it, Szymaniak stressed.

The students who were involved, while very compliant and cooperative, were nonetheless “consequenced” with police and the high school office.

The juvenile justice system now has those students in process, Szymaniak said.

“The young man in the picture was being harassed a little bit and people were afraid of him,” Szymaniak said, noting a second email had to be sent out emphasizing that “he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Another national TikTok threat was known about by school officials, but police were not brought in. Szymaniak stressed that resource officers see and hear what’s going on.

“However, it’s causing some anxiety for students,” he said. A lot of students sought dismissal on Monday, Dec. 6 and he said he didn’t blame them. He met with Whitman and Hanson public safety personnel Dec. 20 to discuss what the school does already to address such situations and they will be reviewing ALICE protocols and retraining all teachers in the emergency response system during January.

Szymaniak said he will also hold a public forum as soon as the police chiefs can coordinate their calendars “somewhere between January and February break.

“Both SROs are actively going to work on a video, using our students, to show our students what should be done in a crisis,” he said. “It’s outstanding, because you can see kids in your own building doing things in a worse-case scenario.”

Age-appropriate instruction for all students K-12 will take place in January through April, as well.

“We don’t want to scare students, we just want them to know what to do in case of an emergency,” Szymaniak said. “COVID has put down a blanket of ‘Let’s deal with COVID.’ Well, these issues are happening as well, so we want to make sure our staff and students are prepared.”

Ferro said that, pre-COVID, W-H was on track to be recognized as an ALICE National School.

“In doing so, we had a contract with ALICE for professional development,” Ferro said. Every teacher would have at the beginning of the school year, three weeks to take a self-guided video program to obtain certification. The next step would be tabletop exercises and “things of that nature,” he said. The video is being updated and will be used as part of the on-boarding process for all new employees, including substitute teachers.

COVID protocols

“We did take a stop because of COVID, and now it’s time to bring that back.”

Where COVID itself is concerned, last week 17 high school students and two staff members tested positive, along with seven Whitman Middle School Students and four staff members; two students and one staff member at Hanson Middle School; eight students and one staff member at Duval; 10 students at Conley and seven students at Indian Head schools; one student and one staff member at the preschool have tested positive for COVID.

“It’s escalating – you’re seeing it on the news,” Szymaniak said.

An Education Commissioner’s meeting Dec. 22 discussed a number of issues, including the mask requirement, which the commissioner was slated to lift Jan. 15, has not yet been changed.

“He said he’ll have some information in the next five to eight days, depending on where things go,” Szymaniak said, noting his whole family had been ill with COVID, all with different levels of symptoms. Both he and his wife and their son are fully vaccinated and his daughter had one shot when they became ill.

“The protocols we use with DESE are verbatim,” he said. “Our school nurses know more about COVID than most DPHs.”

While Szymaniak said he understands parental frustration that the rules for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated students don’t make sense, he argued to the Commissioner that schools should be allowed to test close contacts from home. The Commissioner has so far said no, as they are looking at data.

“How many students do we have here [like his son], asymptomatic, close contact with dad or mom,” he asked. “Nobody’s doing anything wrong. We’re following the protocols.”

South Shore superintendents have drafted a letter to the commissioner asking for the leeway to change testing protocols.

“Things have changed with vaccination statuses, things have changed with medications, things are now changing with quarantines,” he said. “This is a fluid situation, I’ll brief you on the fifth as we go forward.”

In the meantime, parents of students who test positive over Christmas break should contact Lead Nurse Lisa Tobin about the process for them to follow.

The flu is also going through school districts, Szymaniak said.