District eyes options for COVID-19 mitigation plan going into spring

The Wrangell School Board will continue to evaluate its COVID-19 mitigation plan at its next meeting, scheduled for Monday.

As case numbers continue to decline from the severe spike caused by the Omicron variant in December and January, some Alaska districts have voted for optional masking on school grounds.

Effective Feb. 28, the Anchorage School District will make face masks optional for students and staff, Superintendent Deena Bishop announced last Friday in a letter to families.

“As a career educator, I understand how critical it is to focus the district’s energy on student learning,” Bishop wrote. “I believe that continued mandatory mask wearing is counter-productive and negatively impacts our students’ education, intellectual development, and emotional well-being.”

Bishop also cited the steady decline in COVID-19 cases both statewide and in Anchorage.

As of Monday, the number of new infections in Wrangell the past three weeks was at 21, down from the record 185 cases reported from Dec. 30 to Jan. 30. Though case counts are declining across Alaska, the state remains on a “high” alert status.

“We are reviewing the mitigation plan specifically to the situation in Wrangell,” said Bill Burr, superintendent of schools. “We will have updates to the mitigation plan in the same process we have at other school board meetings.”

The district started the school year with mandatory face masks in all buildings, the same as the past school year, and has been reviewing the policy at its monthly board meetings.

Burr said he has been working with district administration to look at the options available heading into spring and how they will affect students and staff. He said they hope to have information out for review soon.

Many in the community have decried the school mask mandate, calling on the district to either end it or at least make it optional. About 14 elementary and middle school students left classes on Jan. 21 to hold a mask-burning protest. In October, 13 coaches and assistant coaches signed a letter to the district requesting the mask mandate be lifted for student athletes during competition.

“If you make kids mask during play, you will lose players, and we already have lost kids due to the (masking) policy,” the letter read. “In Wrangell, if you lose a couple players, you may not have a team; this is true for ladies basketball. When you lose teams, you obviously lose even more kids.”

The district amended the mitigation policy in October to allow optional masking during sporting competitions. Despite weekly testing and masking while not playing, several games were canceled or postponed in January due to athletes throughout Southeast testing positive for COVID.

The Sitka School District recently voted to update its mitigation plan to make masking optional as of March 22, when the city ordinance requiring masking in public places sunsets. Frank Hauser, the district’s superintendent, told the Sitka Sentinel they are ending the mandate due to COVID-19 projections made by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

“I believe the data, projections, vaccine coverage and availability of vaccines and boosters for those who choose, more widely available COVID treatments, Sitka’s robust optional rapid-testing program, and the continuation of Sitka’s other mitigations support this timeline, which also coincides with the end of the face-covering ordinance in Sitka,” Hauser said, adding he would consider ending the mandate earlier if risks were greatly reduced.

Petersburg’s school board on Feb. 8 voted to make masking optional for students and staff in classrooms depending on case counts and risk levels, though masking will still be mandatory in hallways and common areas. Classrooms in the elementary school will be required to return to masking for 10 days if a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19 and was infectious while at school. If four or more classrooms have a positive case, the entire school will be required to return masking.

At the high school and middle school level, masking will be optional in Petersburg’s classrooms if the students are at least three feet apart. If there are three positive cases in those schools, they will need to return to masking.

“Each community has its own unique aspects to their educational mitigation, and we will continue to work and adjust ours,” Burr said.

The next Wrangell School Board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday via Zoom.