COVID-19 numbers at lowest point of year for Geneva schools | Local News

GENEVA — COVID-19 case numbers in the Geneva Area City Schools are at hit the lowest point of this year, Superintendent Terri Hrina-Treharn said at a school board meeting on Wednesday night.

The district employs a metric to determine whether or not masks will be required. Hrina-Treharn said the district’s mask metric is at its second lowest level, which means masks are strongly encouraged, but not required.

According to information from the district compiled on Feb. 11, the average case count for three zip codes in the district for the last 14 days is 14. The number of average cases per 100,000 residents in those same zip codes is 251.8, and less than three cases were reported in the district in the proceeding two weeks.

The district’s metric is updated every two weeks.

“I have to say that these are our lowest numbers from the entire school year,” Hrina-Treharn said. “So that was exciting, and hopefully this trend continues.”

In other business

• The board approved a pair of resolutions to the Northeast Ohio Management Information Network, known as NEOMIN. The board approved a resolution and an agreement in favor of NEOMIN reorganizing as a regional council of government.

Hrina-Treharn said the change will not increase costs to the district or the services the district receives.

“[NEOMIN] felt COGs have the ability to provide services to non-K-12 governmental agencies, which could potentially offset costs, which would actually lower them for us, if more people were utilizing them,” she said. “There apparently has been a large push from the state auditor’s office the past few years to have any ITCs remaining as consortiums to convert over to COGs.”

COGs also have employment flexibility regarding contracts that consortiums and school districts do not, Hrina-Treharn said.

NEOMIN provides a variety of services to school districts in Ashtabula and Trumbull counties, and is one of 18 information technology centers in Ohio, according to the organizations website.

• GACS Treasurer Kevin Lillie said he has been able to take advantage of rising interest rates. The district has been able to make investments with interest rates between one and two and a quarter percent, Lillie said.

“Don’t know how long that will last, but we’ll try to get a little higher interest when we can,” Lillie said.

Three investments made in 2019 with higher interest rate investments are coming to maturity, Lillie said.