The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District held a work session on Monday before the regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting to discuss revisions made to the district’s COVID-19 Mitigation Plan. The subject of discussion was the universal masking policy. The district says that if everybody is wearing a face covering and there’s a positive case identified in a student, any other students nearby them don’t necessarily have to quarantine if they are a close contact and wearing a mask, only if there’s universal masking in place.
On revisions, Pegge Erkeneff, Director of Communications, Community and Government Relations for the KPBSD said:
“How does universal masking happen in a particular school? What are the metrics that will, then, instigate a conversation with the local principal about why it might be necessary to move to universal masking? Some of the metrics that we’re looking at include – what is the school community positivity rate? One of the metrics for deciding that we need to have this conversation is that there’s a 3% or greater school community positivity rate; our student absenteeism is at 25% or more; there’s a conversation about what’s happening at the local regional hospitals; there’s a talk about what’s the community risk level, and we know right now that’s high; and looking at what our staff absenteeism rate is. Other factors that are considered are bus routes that might be shared; have there been some big spreader events in the local community; what’s the school’s ability to actually physical distance and with the number of students that are enrolled, really have some physical distancing in place.”
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Erkeneff was asked if instituting universal masking reduced the spread of COVID-19:
“We’re still tracking data for that. What we do know is it has slowed it down. What it really does is if there’s a positive case, we don’t have a lot of close contacts that, then, have to miss school and be quarantined because everybody that’s wearing a face covering indoors at school is not considered a close contact if they’re greater than three feet away from the person who is positive for COVID. What it’s doing is it’s keeping a lot more students and staff at school who aren’t being identified as a close contact.”
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The biggest goal is to keep students at school, despite the rise in COVID-19 cases.
Also, as a reminder, school ends 90 minutes early for students Wednesday, September 15, 2021. Busses will run 90 minutes earlier than normal at the end of the day. PreK – on early release days, afternoon PreK sessions will be canceled. Morning PreK sessions do occur.
