Schools keep face mask, distancing protocols in place

Social distancing and masking requirements will continue to stay in place at Wrangell public schools.

At the school board meeting on Monday night, Superintendent Bill Burr updated board members on a change in some language in the district’s COVID-19 mitigation plan, but students and staff will still be required to wear masks and stay apart.

The board in August agreed to review the mitigation plan and masking requirement monthly.

“There were a few additions we had to [the mitigation plan],” Burr said Monday, which will ease the testing requirement in some cases for students who travel or were in close contact with an infected individual.

“We added the section that said, ‘If a student or staff provide medical documentation of a COVID-positive recovery within the previous three months or 90 days of school, they can return as if vaccinated and will not have to, on travel or close contact, have the testing requirements for those same three months of time,’” Burr said in his update to the board.

“We added that later under the ‘vaccinated students and staff as close contacts’ which also says, ‘If there’s medical documentation and somebody is vaccinated and has gotten COVID, in those three months the testing requirement we would have for vaccinated is also waived,” he said.

Burr said the return-to-school-after-travel protocol was “also added for the same reason as that three months spelled out.”

Board member Patty Gilbert said members of the public asked her how people would be treated if they didn’t wish to share their vaccination status.

“[The public asked] if a student or staff member wishes to not divulge that information, how would that student or staff member be treated?” Gilbert said.

Burr said those not wanting to report their status would be treated as unvaccinated and would have to follow those protocols, which falls in line with public health recommendations.

One parent addressed the board, expressing thanks for the continued mitigation plan.

“I just wanted to … advocate for continued masking for the students and the staff at the school district,” Jessica Whitaker said. “I was really excited to see that we were going to go with masking for the school year, which led me to enrolling both of my kids back in public school this fall. I’m grateful that we have that mitigation plan in place to help protect our students and staff.”

As of Monday, there are 265 students enrolled in Wrangell’s public schools.

After a record-setting COVID-19 outbreak with 48 cases in August, the borough has reported just five new infections in the first 13 days of September.