In an attempt to get quarantined students back in school and to stop sending new close contacts home, The Kenai Peninsula School District has instituted Universal Masking for Skyview Middle, Soldotna High and Cooper Landing. The three schools join several other KPBSD schools, and begin universal masking on Monday, October 4, 2021. Calls and emails were sent to families on Friday October 1st from the individual schools and KPBSD. The face coverings requirement is for all students and staff while indoors at school, beginning Monday, October 4, 2021. This will be reevaluated on Friday, October 15, 2021.
Pegge Erkeneff, Director of Communications, Community and Government Relations for the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District:
“Part of the metrics that are used to determine if the school shifts to universal masking, there’s a number of things, a conversation between the superintendent, assistant superintendent and the school principal as well is the amount of cases at a school and how many students or staff are being quarantined. We look at absenteeism rate too, as well as the number of positive cases at a school. Some of those metrics are what triggered the conversation that the superintendent assistant has had with those school principals. It’s varied through the district, based on the school, but cases are still high on the peninsula, we know that.”
Erkeneff explains how the district tracks the COVID-19 numbers:
“We meet everyday at four o’clock, the whole leadership team does, and evaluate the data that we have for the day. We call principals if we need to find out what’s really happening with these numbers. Are they an isolated case that you can identify? Is this broader? There’s a big conversation that happens with some real data and numbers that are being tracked. Those numbers are either a positive test or school or was self-reported. The priority right now is we’ve got to keep kids in school and everywhere you go, you see a mix of people that are wearing face coverings and people that aren’t and we’ve got high community spread right now.”
In an email sent to parents of Soldotna High School students, Principal Sarge Truesdell, explained why Soldotna High School would be implementing Universal Masking:
“In an attempt to get our current 100+ quarantined students back in school and to stop sending new close contacts home, Universal Masking Soldotna HS our school will join several other KPBSD schools, and begin universal masking on Monday, October 4, 2021. This will help slow in-school exposure to COVID-19, and keep students in school without a need to quarantine if they are exposed to someone who is positive for COVID-19.* Factors that impact this decision include positive COVID-19 cases in schools; the number of identified close contacts who need to quarantine; absenteeism rates; high community transmission; and local health care capacity.”
Details regarding the decision-making process that was followed in the KPBSD Mitigation Plan to make his temporary change.