The Jonathan Alder Board of Education has approved a measure to require all students in the district to wear a mask.
At Monday night’s meeting, the board decided to implement a mask mandate for students, staff and employees for 28 days.
According to the board plan, “the wearing of facial coverings is required in all indoor settings on all district premises, regardless of vaccination status.” The plan does provide that students with medical, religious or developmental conditions that prohibit the use of a mask are exempt from the mask mandate.
The district said it will provide masks to anyone free of charge.
The district policy also addresses the idea that masks can be a source of contention.
“The district will not tolerate harassment of students wearing face coverings or those who have been exempted from the requirement,” according to the approved policy. “The district will appropriately discipline students or staff who harass or bully students or engage in behavior that interferes with any student or staff member’s ability to comply with this policy.”
The district said it will continue to partner with Madison County Public Health to provide voluntary vaccinations to prevent COVID-19 and release time to students and staff and will provide students and families “flexible options for excused absences to receive a COVID-19 vaccination and for possible side effects after vaccination.”
The plan specifically noted the COVID-19 vaccine is “optional and not required for school attendance, nor is it required for participation in any school activity.”
The district has also noted that the Centers for Disease Control requires all staff and students to use a mask when riding district buses or school vans.
The district has said that students and staff should stay home when they have signs of any illness and be referred to their healthcare provider for care.
The district has also said the health department requires the quarantine and isolation of individuals directly exposed to COVID-19.
“MCPH issues and enforces all isolation and quarantine orders, not the district,” according to the district plan.
The district has said it will help identify all contacts and exposures to a positive case as a result of school activities.
“The school nurse and building administrators have been trained to conduct contact tracing in collaboration with Madison County Public Health,” according to the plan.
Officials said they will review the plan in four weeks.
While Fairbanks School Board took no action at a special meeting Monday, parents again squared off on quarantines and the use of masks.
Parent Eryn Staats said she had hoped that a mask mandate would not be needed to keep kids in school.
“The only way that would have been an option is if sick kids stay home,” Staats said.
She added, “unfortunately that did not occur and now we have sick kids and high quarantine numbers.”
“If these kids were wearing masks, the quarantine numbers would go do down, thus reducing the time between school exposure to when a parent is notified of that exposure,” Staats said. “It will also allow less healthy kids to be quarantined.”
She said she believes every parent wants students in school full time.
“I think you will be pleasantly surprised by this school district and their willingness to be flexible to keep kids in school five days a week by wearing a mask,” Staats said.
Another parent said it is fairly clear that, “masks do reduce the incidence of communicable disease transmission.”
She encouraged parents and the board to use a National Institutes of Health clearing house site for scientific study, rather than something they heard on the news or read on social media.
She said the school limits student and parent liberty every day, referencing a school dress policy and a district smoking policy.
She proposed a mask mandate for all students until at least the youngest students can be fully vaccinated.
Parent Dan Wright equated quarantines to an old wives tale.
“These quarantines aren’t helping anybody. There’s nothing to prove that it is,” he said.
Parent Megan Pacha questioned if there was “a misuse” of funds to have district officials contract tracing and addressing COVID questions.
“Why is the district doing the health department’s job? Why are taxpayer dollars being spent to pay two entities to do one job?” Pacha asked.
She said Ohio Department of Health guidelines about quarantines “pretty much has the ball in the health department’s court so to me it seems there should be no phone calls to parents from the school or the school staff of any kind if a positive case is reported,” Pacha said, explaining that all questions should be directed to and addressed by the health department.
The meeting eventually devolved into name calling and yelling.
Resident Brittany Westerfield said masks are not effective and are harmful to users.
“I don’t know why this is even a discussion at this point as to why we need to sit here and vote on forcing children to wear a mask. It is absolutely insane,” Westerfield said.
She said that if the district is going to vote, “then maybe we need to be talking about banning masks altogether and vote on that.”