Petersburg schools will open Aug. 31 with face masks required for at least the first two weeks of the semester, reviewing the policy at the next school board meeting on Sept. 14.
Based on the high count of active COVID-19 cases in Ketchikan, schools there would open Aug. 26 with face masks required of all students, staff and visitors under a draft back-to-school plan subject to school board approval.
Ketchikan’s mask requirement would shift to optional when the active case count in the community drops to five or fewer. The count was 98 active cases as of Monday.
Ketchikan’s policy could shift at this week’s school board meeting — the last meeting before classes start.
Juneau public schools opened to classes on Monday, with face masks required for everyone inside the building. Staff and students also will be asked to undergo daily screenings, with testing for students who participate in group activities.
Skagway started school on Wednesday with face masks required. Haines is requiring masks for all students when classes start next Tuesday.
The Sitka School District policy, as of Aug. 13, requires face masks of all students and staff when at least eight COVID cases are reported in the community in the past 14 days. Sitka has been far above that number at high-alert status since cases spiked to record levels last month, though the numbers have been in decline the past couple of weeks.
In Sitka, 90 children through age 19 tested positive for the virus in July, and 17 more have tested positive through last Wednesday, according to Public Health Nurse Denise Ewing.
“Most of those children have varying degrees of symptoms. Some of it is just really minor. And some of it, some of those have had some of our children go to the hospital and be treated for COVID in the emergency room,” Ewing told public radio station KCAW last Friday.
Many of the Southeast communities’ policies encountered strong support — and opposition — at school board meetings.
“This still is in progress and we haven’t finished,” Cheryl File, a member of the Petersburg school board, said at the Aug. 10 meeting. “It’s not set in stone yet.”
Face masks are optional at schools in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Fairbanks North Star Borough, both with vaccination rates among eligible residents at far below the statewide number.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District started classes on Tuesday, with a policy that “highly recommends” but does not require students and staff wear a face covering while indoors, while requiring all visitors and volunteers to wear a face mask inside during the school day.
Anchorage School District Superintendent Deena Bishop said she has no plans to reconsider a board-approved policy that requires students and staff to wear masks indoors after the mayor criticized the district decision.
The mayor, who took office July 1 after campaigning for the job on a no-masks, no-mandates platform, said in an Aug. 6 Facebook post that residents “should be free to make their own decisions about their health care, about their families, and about their children’s education.”
Mayor Dave Bronson added: “I strongly oppose the Anchorage School District’s back to school mask mandate and strongly encourage them to immediately reconsider.”
Alaska has recorded about 16,000 cases of COVID-19 in youth through age 19, with about 6,000 cases in children under age 10, according to data Monday from the state Department of Health and Social Services. Total cases in Alaska across all age groups since the count started last March was 77,774 as of Tuesday.
Face masks will be required indoors at all University of Alaska buildings in communities with “high” or “substantial” transmission under the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines — which covers almost the entire state as of this week.
The university is not requiring students to wear a mask in their housing units, but it is requiring proof of vaccination for students in dorms and apartments on the Juneau and Anchorage campuses.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Reader Comments(0)