WALDRON, Ark. — As the number of students and staff testing positive for COVID-19 increases, the Waldron Public School District is implementing a mask requirement.
A special school board meeting was held Tuesday (Sept. 7) and board members voted 5-0 in passing the face mask regulation, which went into effect on Sept. 8. The mask regulation reads once the school district reaches 15% of quarantined students, masks will be required and that the policy will be revisited every 30 days.
In a letter posted by the school district, Superintendent Daniel Fielding says he along with the local school board felt compelled to recommend the mask policy for certain situations in schools.
"Admittedly this is not something that anyone wants to do but in an effort to keep our community fully aware of what the rules are for schools with respect to positive COVID cases and quarantines I am providing this document to reference," said Fielding.
The letter listed the only two ways a person can avoid being quarantined as required by the Arkansas Department of Education and Arkansas Department of Health are if:
- The person is fully vaccinated (A fully vaccinated person is someone who is two weeks past their second round of vaccinations for COVID-19.)
- Both the infected person and the probable close contact person are both wearing face masks properly during the duration of contact.
The Waldron letter says that both of these regulations have led to a very high number of quarantined students and staff due to the low percentage of fully vaccinated individuals in the country and that both parties must be wearing a mask.
Waldron Public Schools says it has seen a consistent increase in positive student cases, as many as 400 students being quarantined at once, leaving the schools unable to properly have classes or extra-curricular activities. The district says this situation has made implementing face masks unavoidable if the schools wish to continue in-person classes.
The Waldron School District broke down how Probably Close Contact (PCC) students are identified with the process going as follows:
- Contact tracing begins with identifying students who have been around a COVID-positive person 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms. This includes being within six feet of the person for a cumulative of 15 minutes to a 24-hour period. For example, a student starts feeling sick on Wednesday at noon, so contact tracing goes back to everyone the individual has had contact with since noon on Monday.
- Seating charts in classes and on buses are used to determine who has been within six feet of an infected individual for a total of 15 minutes. A student may be in contact with a person for 10 minutes in one period and five minutes in another period but still qualifies then as a PCC.
- Camera footage from buses and areas in different parts of the school buildings is also used to determine contact time.
Waldron Public Schools says the 48-hour prior tracing is a very stringent requirement it must follow and is what attributes to the significant number of quarantine cases it currently is seeing.
Superintendent Fielding concluded the letter by saying he is not a fan of masks and that masks began as a recommendation for schools but is now necessary.
"As a school district we stated that the school would begin with masks as a recommendation, not a rule and that we would monitor the need as a local decision based on local numbers," said Flemming. "We have done that and it has become obvious that the best and truly only option to be able to have some type of normal school and extra-curricular activities is to implement a requirement to wear face-coverings when the need is present."
Fielding also says he hopes the mask policy will address the needs for face coverings and expresses the schools' desire to continue making local decisions based on local needs.
For more information about Waldron Public Schools or its mask policy, please visit its website.