The Wrangell School District plans to start classes Aug. 30 with face masks required when staff and students are indoors — same as last year.
The district is working under its COVID-19 mitigation plan, released in June, and will adapt it as needed, said Bill Burr, who took over as schools superintendent July 1.
Burr said he has met with borough officials and the community’s health care provider, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, “to try to get a cohesive plan all together.”
Advance planning for how to respond as COVID case counts in the community change is important, “so that we’re not just meeting in crisis,” he said.
“We’re in a different place right now with the (Delta) variant,” Burr said of rising cases across Alaska and the recent infections reported in Wrangell after almost a month without any new cases.
The overriding goal is “to get students back in school,” or enrolled online with district classes if that’s what some students and parents prefer, the superintendent said.
Wrangell schools are working to rebuild enrollment that dropped from about 300 to just over 200 at its low point last year as students left the district for homeschooling or online programs run by other districts.
“We want to meet the students where they are,” Burr said. “We want students in our district.”
State funding, which provides the largest piece of the school budget, is tied to enrollment numbers.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended “universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.”
The CDC also advised, “Children should return to full-time, in-person learning in the fall, with layered prevention strategies in place.”
In addition to requiring face masks indoors, Wrangell schools will continue with other measures to reduce the risk of COVID transmission, such as testing students before any sports travel, disinfecting surfaces at the schools “and practicing social distancing where space allows,” according to the district’s mitigation plan.
The state is seeing a spike in COVID cases — almost 4,000 since mid-July, including 750 over the weekend — prompting several communities to impose masking requirements as school districts plan for classes to resume this month.
The Anchorage schools superintendent issued a letter to families and students Saturday night, advising them that masking will be recommended for all students and staff in all schools this fall to limit the spread of COVID-19.
The Anchorage school board will review the superintendent’s plans at its meeting this week. Classes start Aug. 17.
Sitka has been one of the hardest-hit communities in the state, with several hundred new COVID cases in July and rising hospitalizations. “Sitka changed thinking for a lot of superintendents, particularly in Southeast,” Burr said, explaining that a lot of people travel to Sitka for health care and could contact and spread the virus.
The Wrangell district is surveying students, parents and the rest of the community this month for their opinions on face masks and other COVID policies.
One of the questions asks: “What is your current level of support for the face-covering (mask) policy?” The possible answers range from “extremely pleased” to “extremely unpleased.”
With the survey, the district wants to learn if the face mask policy is going to affect students’ and parents’ decisions to enroll this year, Burr said. “Are masks the only factor to determine attendance.”
The district last week sent out the online survey by email. Paper copies also are available from district offices at Evergreen Elementary School. The district would like responses by the end of next week.
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