Jul. 16—NANTICOKE — At a brief meeting Thursday the Greater Nanticoke Area School Board passed a school safety plan that — for now — would still require elementary students to wear masks, approved a one-year Act 93 agreement that gives 14 employees a 2% raise, and for the second consecutive month officially asked long-absent board Member Matthew Landmesser to resign.
Noting the safety plan is “ever changing” but also necessary to qualify for a $7.3 million federal COVID-19 grant, Superintendent Ron Grevera said the plan is to start school Sept. 7 “as close to normal as possible. Nobody is more excited about that than this guy.”
Grevera said most staff and many of the students 12 and over have been vaccinated, with another student vaccination clinic being set up for August. Which means the Education Center and High School are expected to open with no mask requirements, and lunches returning to the cafeteria for all students — elementary students had been eating in their rooms at their desks during the peak of the pandemic. The district still intends to try to maintain three feet of social distance, the current recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But students in the elementary school will still be wearing masks under current guidance, he said, though that could change either with new guidance from the CDC or state, or with approval of a vaccine for younger children.
The Act 93 agreement covers non-union employees, primarily administrators and staff other than the superintendent. The board unanimously approved the agreement, a sharp contrast to the June meeting where the eight members present split evenly on the motion to approve,
Landmesser was the lone missing member at that meeting, making the tie possible with eight members instead of nine. At that meeting, the board also voted to ask Landmesser…




Fire in a garage at 2 Mohican TrailHouse fire: On July 10, a Mohican Trail house caught fire. Firefighters arrived and observed smoke pushing out from second floor eaves, with the main body of the fire appearing to be located in the garage. Police notified the homeowner who said he was out of town with his family, and no one was in the house. Firefighters used a hose line to attack the fire with water. They forced open the front door and found no one inside. They searched the house for extension and found a second-floor room above the garage to be affected by the fire. A second hose line was stretched for use fighting the fire in this area. Volunteer firefighters were dispatched for help. Greenville and Hartsdale fire departments also assisted until the fire was out. The fire investigator noted that the house was under construction, and the garage seemed to be the place where work materials were being stored. The cause of the fire could not be specifically determined. A contractor arrived on scene to board up the house during the homeowner’s absence.