Greene County students and staff will be required to wear masks at all times when they return to in-person attendance Nov. 30 after seven days of remote learning.
The board of education at its Nov. 18 regular meeting approved a mask mandate effective immediately, and until the county public health department gives the school notice the mandate is no longer needed. The only exception is for staff, primarily teachers, who are alone in a room with the door shut.
It was the third time the board discussed a mask mandate. In August, while the number of cases of Covid-19 in the county was 30 or so, board members Steve Karber and Mike Dennhardt lobbied for a full mandate. Board president Steve Fisher, John McConnell and Catherine Wilson opposed a mandate. The board approved by a 3-2 vote a three-tier matrix for mask wearing dependent on the number of positive cases in a building.
In October, as case numbers were increasing and there had been 29 cases of Covid-19 among staff and students, the board spent an hour discussing the use of face masks. Several teachers and members of the community asked the board for a mandate. Superintendent Tim Christensen said that based on his conversations with teachers, about three-fourths of them wanted a mask mandate. But instead of a mandate, the board voted to “freeze” the matrix at yellow, meaning masks were required only when social distancing isn’t possible. Fisher, McConnell and Wilson voted for the motion, while Karber and Dennhardt voted against it.
This time the conversation was held during an “explosion” of Covid-19, with 14-day positivity rates in the 25 percent range and the school buildings closed. Superintendent Tim Christensen opened the discussion saying that remote learning is “going as good as it can go. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We want kids in person.”
“We want to do everything single thing we can in order to come back after Thanksgiving, in person, and make it all the way to Christmas,” he said.
He said he’d be talking to staff about ramping up mitigation strategies after Thanksgiving. “The general consensus is we want kids in school. We need to assure that can happen,” he added.
Fisher mentioned that the mandate passed by the county supervisors states that masks must be worn in any indoor public setting. It named some examples, but not schools. Karber said that since a school is a public setting, he interprets the county mandate to include them. Fisher agreed.
“The school board can follow up on what the supervisors said, and go to red,” Karber said. Red on the district’s mask matrix requires masks at all times.
Fisher, who championed the matrix earlier, said he thinks the board should do away with it. “It didn’t work because it didn’t provide consistency,” he said.
Fisher said he liked Karber’s suggestion at the October meeting that masks be required at all times except for staff members alone in a room. He said conversation with public health director Becky Wolf verified that exception is not only workable, but it’s the procedure at Greene County Medical Center.
Wilson read from the county mask mandate, emphasizing that it calls for masks when persons can’t maintain a 6-foot distance. She pointed out the governor’s mandate says the same. Fisher called that “confusing.”
Fisher said people “have to defer to public health now, and especially with the new state guidelines and county guidelines.”
Karber suggested students should have a “time out” place where they could take off their masks. Dennhardt dismissed that idea, saying it would create inconsistency.
Dennhardt said he’s had phone calls from several teachers who are frustrated by the inconsistency in expectations of mask use. “We’re wasting a lot of time. Let’s put masks on everybody and get kids in school. They don’t need to be at home. They need to be in school,” he insisted.
“There’s no way to walk through the doors of a school and stay 6 foot apart. It’s not even worth arguing about any more,” he said.
Wilson held out, again saying the county and state mandates allow for times a 6-foot distance is possible, and that it would be unfair to allow staff to take their masks off at times.
Fisher disagreed. “We have a lot of things staff can do that kids can’t do. Staff are adults, and students, for the most part, are minors,” he said.
Teacher Heath Telleen was at the meeting and invited to speak. He said attitudes toward wearing masks has changed considerably among high school students since the start of the school year. “They want to stay in school, and I think that’s (wearing a mask) a reality until a vaccine gets here,” he told the board.
McConnell was absent from the meeting. The four members present voted unanimously to approve the mandate. It is effective immediately for staff still working in the buildings.
