T-R PHOTO BY TREVOR BABCOCK Marshalltown Community School District lead nurse Stacey-Tool Crawford gives the board of education a report on student health services from the 2020 to 2021 school year.

With a full school year in a pandemic completed, the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education received an end-of-year report on student health services.

“To say this past school year was unprecedented would be an understatement. From a health perspective, it was a year like no other,” district lead nurse Stacey Tool-Crawford told the school board at their regular meeting Monday night.

A total of 178 students reported a positive test for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The statistic does not include positive tests during times of school closure.

Vaccination rates among staff was 81 percent after the school held vaccine clinics for employees in February. Tool-Crawford expects the number to be larger now with more staff having received a vaccine since then. For students, the vaccination rate for ages 12 and older is 21 percent after clinics were held in May. Tool-Crawford also expects the number to be larger now.

She said her health office staff of nine registered nurses and four health aides has done an amazing job, taking on more leadership and work loads as they took calls after hours to answer questions about COVID-19 exposure.

A major endeavor for the health staff has been contact tracing, which Tool-Crawford said coupled with mitigation efforts has shown schools to be safe during the pandemic.

“We have found clearly that we could get our students back into schools and have them be educated in school and still be safe,” she said.

When tracking health conditions within the student population, 265 students were reported to have anxiety, a roughly 60 percent increase from the previous year, Tool-Crawford said. She said the highest increases were reported to be within the middle school and high school, but increases were also seen down to the elementary level.

“We would venture to say that could likely be because of the pandemic and the changes that our students have gone through,” Tool-Crawford said.

She also said the number is not totally reflective of reality, as some families do not report diagnoses.

Board member Karina Hernandez said the number was concerning, and asked Tool-Crawford if the district knows what portion of students with anxiety are receiving treatment.

“We certainly could track to see how many of those are being treated,” Tool-Crawford said. “I would tell you that the majority of them are, and when I say treated it could be that they’re either on medication or just have therapy, and I know for a fact that some of them are not being treated as

In other business…

• The school board was introduced to the new hire for the Director of Instruction position Shauna Smith. Smith is returning to the district, once serving as a teacher and teacher leader in Marshalltown. Most recently, she worked as the director of curriculum and student services at South Tama Community School District for the past three years. Smith said she is overly excited to serve the community.

“We live in a community, my children go to school here, I’m very much committed and invested in the Marshalltown Community School District,” she said.

Smith’s official start date is July 1.

• The school board voted unanimously to approve the purchase of MasteryConnect using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds for $91,641.80. The program helps teachers compile and interpret student data to improve learning outcomes. Marshalltown High School Principal Jacque Wyant advocated for the program as a way to address learning gaps as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. well.”

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Contact Trevor Babcock at 641-753-6611

or tbabcock@timesrepublican.com.