Panama Central School board members and district officials are pictured during a Zoom meeting earlier this month.

PANAMA — Panama Central School officials haven’t had a major issue with students not participating in online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

During a board meeting earlier this month, Lauren Harper, Panama Central School elementary principal, and Danielle Cook, Panama Central School 7-12 principal, discussed with board members how teachers have been teaching students.

Harper said that while the situation has been challenging for teachers, the teachers have been flexible to adapt instruction from the classroom to the internet. Every child received an electronic device from the district. First through sixth grade students use Google Classroom, with teachers posting assignments and students able to respond and communicate. Some teachers are also using Zoom for instruction and lessons. Kindergarten teachers are using Bloom, which allows teachers and children to post photos and private messages.

“They’re taking into account multiple levels of internet access or not at all,” Harper said. “They’re doing a really great job of adapting to the circumstances, I would say. They’re communicating with the students. They’re answering questions. They’re basically on call 24 hours a day from what I’m seeing and what I’m hearing from parents. I’m really happy with how well we’re doing and how we’re continuing in the educational process at this point.”

The high school teachers are also using Google Classroom and Zoom, Cook said, though online instruction has been a balancing act for the upper grades.

“Continuing that online instruction is definitely a balancing act,” Cook said. “Some of our kids and families have good accessibility; some of them don’t. I think the time management of the instruction at home is different in every household and definitely is a challenge. It seems every household has different challenges — that’s understandable. I think they’re doing a good job of understanding that balance.”

Panama’s meeting was held before the state Board of Regents issued guidance to school districts on how to proceed with grading students during the pandemic-related shutdown.

However, Cook said teachers were being tasked mainly with instructing students and communicating with them regularly. Students are being given the type of work that will keep them on track to meet the state’s graduation requirements.

Few children have been difficult to get a hold of, though Cook said there was one child she had to ask local agencies to help find.

“Danielle and I are requiring the teachers to fill out a communication/contact, not a log per se but a Google form we made up so we’re able to go in and check that,” Harper said. “We can check that daily, weekly, to doublecheck that kids are being in contact with and a lot of my teachers have reached out and said specifically what kids they’ve had trouble getting in contact with and that’s kind of when we intervene and check in and see how things are going. We usually get a pretty quick response back.”

In other business, the district is continuing work on its 2020-21 budget proposal while waiting for guidance from the state in May on how much aid the district may lose if state revenues remain low. District officials have removed a planned school bus purchase of $207,461, removed a vacant cleaner’s position from the budget to save $56,000, reduced textbook purchases by $4,500, furniture by $8,000 and special education contractual services by $15,000.

“The thought there with the buses, because we have been so good on our fleet with the uncertainty, we thought there’s a couple of hundred thousand dollars there,” said Bert Lictus, district superintendent. “The vacant cleaning position is because we are getting so much work done now and I think some of the people who are in different positions have been hired and are doing a pretty good job, so we can see how it goes. By not filling it does not eliminate the position, but it’s just vacant, at least for the short term.”

Lictus said the district will have several possible retirements at the end of the 2021 school year, which could result in cost savings for the district. Lictus is also asking the board to add a social worker into the 2020-21 budget in part because of the COVID-19 shutdown.

“Another thing I’m asking you to think about, and I just want it out there, is the social work position,” Lictus said. “While that was going to be something new, and I know these are hard times, I think it might be more important now than it was in the past because I know there are some families right now that are struggling. I think it’s just going to grow, so this budget shows a minor reduction in spending and does include that new position. I think that’s important for the board to think philosophically about.”

The budget is currently $12,858,052, a $46,324 decrease from the 2019-20 budget, according to Amanda Kolstee, district treasurer. Panama has a $2,832,000 fund balance at the end of June 2019, and includes $589,500 in the 2020-21 budget. Kolstee expects to see more money added to the district’s surplus as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown as well.

“We’ll be underspending the budget this current year we’re in,” she said. “So that’s what I’m working on now. We’re liquidating purchase orders, purchasing has pretty much stopped except for the custodial department is buying some supplies and transportation as well.”