KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland was emphatic about the school district’s treatment of COVID for the indefinite future: no special accommodations.
“If you’re sick, then we follow our normal protocols for being sick,” said Holland on KSRM’s Morning Update with Matt Wilson. “It’s really the same for any sickness. If you’re sick. Treat it like you’re sick and don’t get other people infected the best that you can.”
Specifically, Holland wanted to make sure everyone within the district understood that there would be no more mask mandates going forward. “I just want to make sure it’s loud and clear that we are not going to mandate masking. We’re not going to shut down or lock our kids out of school in any shape or form that is not happening here, I want to make sure the community knows that’s a non-factor.”
For many, not masking has been a foregone conclusion for two years or more, but with school districts, federal institutions, and businesses around the country still implementing the controversial preventative measure Holland wanted their to be no question as to the district’s policy. This was not an arbitrary decision, however, as the superintendent of 2 years shared a little on why a line in the sand in masking is so important.
“I think we know the impact on the social [and] emotional outcomes. There’s a huge issue in the country with depression, anxiety right now with young people and also the impact on boarding. You know, our children, when they learn how to read, have to look at lips and do understand language and how [a mask] impedes that as well. So, we’re not going there.”
Holland did clarify that masking was still allowed for those who wished to wear one. “Certainly, individuals who choose to wear a mask, we will respect and support and hope everyone else does that. But there will be no mandate regarding that whatsoever.”
There is still a lot of ground to cover on the road back to normalcy after the pandemic, but a firm, institutional relegation of COVID to the pool of ‘any standard illness’ is definitely a step in that direction.