School board approves temporary K-8 mask mandate
School board approves temporary K-8 mask mandate
The mandate applies only to the first week. The board will meet again to consider a longer term requirement. A sizable group of parents protested the mandate, picketing outside the meeting Monday.
Students in Albany County elementary and middle schools will be required to mask up for at least the first week of the semester.
The issue is contentious in Albany County, as it is elsewhere throughout the country, and saw about 20-30 parents attend a special meeting of the Albany County School District No. 1 Board of Education on Monday.
The meeting did not allow public comment, but parents made their thoughts known — picketing outside before the meeting, reacting quietly but audibly throughout, and gathering again outside once the decision was made and the meeting adjourned.
Superintendent Jubal Yennie recommended the temporary mask mandate, explaining in a statement that it is necessary for an in-person semester. If students are exposed to a positive case of COVID-19 in the classroom, everyone who was unmasked could be required to quarantine for two weeks, Yennie writes. That could happen enough to shut down the school and send everyone home.
“Even though there is not a state or county health mandate, the Wyoming Department of Health has the authority to require people to isolate or quarantine for periods up to 14 days to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in our community,” Yennie writes. “Parents and students would like to have a choice whether or not to wear a face mask, but if everyone wears a face mask, then students and staff will be able to stay in school.”
An additional concern Yennie raised in his statement and during the meeting Monday was the spread of the highly contagious delta variant which is driving the current surge of cases, hospitalizations and death across the state.
“There is still a great deal of uncertainty,” he said during the meeting. “We’ve seen case numbers go from two per day, three weeks ago, to 16-17 yesterday and the day before. We do not know what the delta surge will be. There is a certain level of precaution we need to take.”
Trustee Nate Martin offered the motion, and responded to the concerns and criticisms levied by some parents in the district.
“This isn’t a culture war issue for me,” Martin said. “This is about the health and safety of our students and it’s about keeping kids in class.”
The mask mandate passed overwhelmingly, on a 7-1 vote with only Trustee Jason Tangeman dissenting. Tangeman stressed that he did not doubt the science or effectiveness of masks, and that the issue of masks would be less important if more people in Albany County got vaccinated.
“I want to be clear: I’m not a person that believes masks don’t work, so (for) anyone in the audience, I want to be clear,” he said. “And I don’t believe they’re unconstitutional and I don’t believe it’s a statutory problem. For those of you who don’t know me, I practice law and have some opinions about this.”
Tangeman’s decision to vote against was driven by an acknowledgement that students’ education is diminished by having to wear masks.
“I do certainly believe, anecdotally, from information I’ve received from many parents, that it hasn’t been good for their kid – they feel sick when they come home and that sort of thing,” Tangeman said. “The status quo has been no masks and personally that’s where I would love to see us be.”
The mask mandate doesn’t apply to the playground, classes hosted outside or other activities outdoors. Medical exemptions can be requested but must be approved. Yennie said enforcement would be handled like other disciplinary matters and would first involve seeking compliance through a conversation with the offending student and their parents.
The school mandate follows the University of Wyoming’s mask mandate, which is in effect for the first month of the fall semester, and the county’s mask mandate for the courthouse and other county-owned buildings.
Failed amendment extending mandate to K-12
For: Nate Martin, Emily Siegel-Stanton, Mark Bittner
Against: Jason Tangeman, Beth Bear, Jamin Johnson, Lawrence Parea, Kim Sorenson
Trustee Martin proposed an amendment to his own motion, seeking to extend the mandate from K-8 to K-12.
“I haven’t heard the latest percentage of high school-aged students in the district that are vaccinated, but my understanding is that it’s still low,” Martin said. “It might be better than some areas, but it’s nowhere near the lion’s share of where we need to be for herd immunity.”
Albany County has the second highest adolescent vaccination rate in the state at nearly 38 percent. While that rate is significantly better than the state’s average rate of 17 percent, it’s far behind Teton County’s 65 percent, and far below what experts estimate is needed for herd immunity.
Martin added that vaccinated people can still get sick and spread the disease, so masks add another layer of protection even for those who have gotten the jab.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to apply this to a part of the district, when we’re dealing with a public health decision,” Martin said. “This really only works if everybody participates.”
But the motion failed on a 3-5 vote. While Trustee Kim Sorenson said he would be prepared to support a K-12 mandate if that’s what the board decides later, he said his immediate concern was for those who cannot be vaccinated even if they want to be.
“My original assumption was to protect the youngest and the people who work with them — the people who have no opportunity whatsoever to be vaccinated,” Sorenson said. “If they choose or their parents choose, there’s no opportunity, there’s no choice right now. That was why it was K-8.”
Failed amendment allowing removal of masks when students are seated at their desks
For: Jason Tangeman, Jamin Johnson
Against: Beth Bear, Mark Bittner, Nate Martin, Lawrence Parea, Kim Sorenson, Emily Siegel-Stanton
Trustee Tangeman put forward an amendment that would have allowed students to remove their masks for much of their class time.
“As I understand CDC guidelines, masking is not necessary with proper social distancing,” Tangeman said. “It’s my understanding that our elementary schools can do that.”
But Superintendent Yennie clarified that while classrooms are employing some social distance, other factors — especially duration — come into play when defining “close contact.”
“The CDC guidelines are saying that students need to maintain a distance of 3-6 feet. And that’s primarily for other areas of the country that have less space than we do in Wyoming. The threshold is still close contact within 6 feet for 15 minutes.”
Trustee Emily Siegel-Stanton said she had concerns about how effectively such an allowance could be implemented. She said school closures happening around the country because of outbreaks in the classroom also give her pause.
“I would hesitate to water down or rollback this mask requirement at all, until we know more about what’s going on, when we’re hearing reports of a large amount of kids getting quarantined,” Siegel-Stanton said. “I’d like us to start out really strong, give kids a consistent start to the school year and then say, ‘okay, if numbers are coming down in the county and vaccinations are going up, let’s walk it back a little bit.’”
The amendment failed on a 2-6 vote.
Parental Involvement
Though the motion passed on a 7-1 vote, not everyone was pleased.
Several trustees mentioned the outpouring of feedback they have received from district parents and many praised that involvement.
Trustee Beth Bear was one member who offered that praise, but added some of the messages she received were out of line.
“I am disappointed and honestly saddened by how divisive this topic has become in our community,” Bear said. “While I understand having the courage of one’s convictions, the manner in which many of these convictions and opinions have been expressed have been rude at best and threatening in many instances.”
Emily Siegel-Stanton vocally supported the mask mandate — and even voted in favor of extending the mandate to the high school level — but said she had heard the concerns of those who disagreed.
“We will continue to listen to you throughout this process,” Siegel-Stanton said. “In an age where things have gotten black and white, I’ve really see a lot of gray in this issue.”
Not all parents felt heard.
A group of them, some with children, were present at the Monday meeting, protesting outside beforehand, waving to drivers on Grand Avenue with signs reading “Please keep masks optional,” “Our Kids Our Choice,” “Mandates = Tyrany” and “Stop the Mask-erade.”
There were few others at the meeting, but there have certainly been parents vocal in their support of mask mandates.
Christine Porter is both a parent and public health expert at the University of Wyoming. She recently emailed the superintendent and school board members, objecting to what was then the lack of any mandate.
“If it stands, your decision will cause some deaths that would not otherwise have happened and, of course, to more illness, more long-COVID in our children, and even more among adults,” Porter writes. “This will also contribute to the development of even more vaccine-resistant and more contagious variants of the virus.”
She compared close contact indoors without masks to drunk driving.
“Sure, not everyone who chooses to drive while intoxicated will harm themselves or others,” Porter writes. “In fact, in each individual drive, they probably won’t. But eventually they probably will. People are free to choose to drink. People are free to choose to drive. But we have made choosing the combination of drinking and driving illegal because of the high risk of harming others. If you make it a personal choice for people to ‘drive drunk’ in our classrooms and hallways, then some students and staff are going to get hit.”
Parents at the meeting took a different view, but there was no opportunity for public comment. Those wishing to speak for or against a longer-term mandate will instead get that chance when the board meets Sept. 1.
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