Testing “not mandatory,” superintendent says
Sulphur Bluff ISD can now test staff and students on-campus for COVID-19 at no cost to the district, a move to aid in contact tracing for positive cases, superintendent Dustin Carr reported at the Thursday night board meeting.
“The reason we did this for staff is for peace of mind if they were in close contact or have got the symptoms,” Carr said, adding the tracing “will help keep the spread down.”
The district has access to 240 rapid antigen tests, roughly the number of staff and students combined, and once that number drops below 50%, more tests will be sent over. Samples are collected nasally, and while these tests produce reliable positive results, negative results need to corroborated by the more accurate PCR tests, which are given at the Red Cross building on 128 Jefferson in Sulphur Springs.
“When I signed up for it, I thought it was just the [oral] swab,” Carr said with a laugh. “We got into the training and, nope, it’s a nasal swab.”
Staff are already being tested, Carr said, especially if they show symptoms or have been in close contact with a COVID-19 positive person. Parents will have to give permission for their children to be tested, and forms will be sent out after Christmas break.
“We’re only go to do it to those with symptoms,” Carr said. “If they were sent to the nurse with something, then we could test them right then and there.”
In action items, the board approved the amended value limitation application from Hopkins Energy, LLC on the planned solar in the Dike area. The project has been pushed back a year with construction to start January 2023, and the 10-year value limitation agreement does not start until January 2022 with $50,000 supplemental payments to the district each year. However, after negotiations, the district will still receive a supplemental payment for the 2021-2022 budget cycle.
The boundaries of the reinvestment zone, which is the area where the solar farm could be constructed, have also been changed, but the investment amount of $144 million has not.
“A reinvestment zone must be contiguous, meaning they [parcels of land] all have to touch,” economic development director with law firm Powell, Youngblood and Taylor Shelly Leung said. “You can’t just pick pieces of it. Some parcels may be in the reinvestment zone, but they may not have part of the project on it.”