Gresham panel recommends mask policy be reinstated

The Gresham School Board will be voting on whether or not to reinstate its mask policy, but it comes with the recommendation that the Gresham School District only do so in the event that cases of COVID-19 explode in the school.

One week earlier, the board dealt with almost two dozen parents angry about the possibility that masks would be required in school after it was decided last month that masking would be optional when the school opened Sept. 1. The previous mask policy had been rescinded in June once the 2020-21 school year concluded, with officials feeling that masks would not be required for summer school.

The district’s personnel and policy committee met Sept. 7 to look over what had been in place previously, which had been recommended by the district’s attorneys at the time, according to Superintendent Newell Haffner.

“This is helping us to be prepared,” said board member Marge Eberhard. “It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to do this.”

The main decision on whether to mandate masking will fall to Haffner and his administrative team, especially if a large outbreak occurs a week or more before the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Haffner said that if an issue came up just before a board meeting took place, he would be fine with the board making the determination of whether masking would be mandatory.

The district reported that it had a single positive case of COVID-19 on Sept. 3, which required eight students to be quarantined. Haffner said the students were in different classes, so it was not necessary to have a whole class switch to virtual learning, and the students in quarantine will have assignments sent home. This comes after weeks of having zero cases in the community.

Currently, no school districts in Shawano County have established mask mandates. Menominee Indian School District is requiring them because of the policies in place on the Menominee Reservation.

Haffner said that having numerical thresholds for requiring masks, moving to hybrid virtual learning or closing the school entirely were unrealistic because there could be different scenarios depending on whether the students were in a single classroom or in multiple classrooms.

“It seemed like the board wanted to put out a number, like if we had five kids, there should be face masks,” Haffner said. “I keep saying that I can’t do that because there are so many other variables. It’s not just what kids are out; it’s what staff are out. What happens with food service and other things factor into that decision.”

The district’s goal is to stay with in-person learning five days a week, according to Haffner, and going to a hybrid model will only be necessary if a high percentage of the school population becomes ill or is exposed to someone who is ill.

“I can’t say that, if we have seven kids (out), we go to cohorts, or if we have nine kids, we go to this,” Haffner said, noting that when the decisions were made last year, there were high numbers of cases in the community, ranging from 53 to 90.

Unfortunately, any kind of policy may not stop rumors from spreading. Haffner said he had a parent come in and say he’d heard the school’s entire junior high volleyball team had been quarantined, but that was not the case.

He said that, if a class becomes exposed, everyone in the room could be quarantined, but that wouldn’t require shutting the school down. Haffner noted that Tigerton has had such an instance already.

Eberhard felt that line of thinking was sound, but added it would be foolish not to have a plan in place in case things took a turn for the worse.

“The main thing is to keep school open, five days a week,” Eberhard said. “If we have to isolate or quarantine a very small number of kids, we can do that without affecting the five-day week.”

Board member Joe Ejnik agreed that setting benchmarks doesn’t work with a pandemic because numbers are dependent

“For me, it’s a go-on-the-fly type of thing,” Ejnik said. “These are guidelines. If you go off the numbers, there are too many variables that go with that.”

Board member Jim Hoffman felt putting the decision in Haffner’s hands made the most sense.

“We don’t have the information you have, when you’re sitting in your team meetings with the nurses and the health department to determine it,” Hoffman said. “Speaking for myself, I’m comfortable with you taking all your stuff and making decisions from the numbers and everything, on how we’re going to keep the school open yet keep people safe.”

Hoffman noted that it’s going to be difficult to keep the peace, regardless of the decision reached next week. There are extremes on both sides, with some feeling masks are not needed under any circumstances while others think masks should be mandatory for all, regardless of whether they’ve been vaccinated or not.

“I don’t want to argue with people I’ve known all my life over a mask,” Hoffman said.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com

THE NEXT STEP

WHAT: Gresham School Board meeting

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Sept. 13

WHERE: Commons, Gresham Community School, 501 E. Schabow St., Gresham