Robbinsville – Graham County Schools resumed mandatory masks on Wednesday, in an effort to avoid widespread quarantines from rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.
Students, faculty and staff are required to wear masks for the rest of January. The mandate also applies to visitors to Graham County school grounds and buildings.
Bus riders have been required to wear masks when riding school buses; that has not changed.
There is concern about increased spread of both COVID-19 variants and flu following the Christmas holidays break. The school district requires anyone exposed to a positive COVID-19 case to quarantine (now for five days; it had been 10), which would be a far larger number of people than just COVID-19 cases.
Robbinsville Elementary School Principal Jaime Hooper brought up the subject during her monthly report to the School Board at the board meeting in Robbinsville on Tuesday. She asked that a mask mandate be reinstated for January.
The board further discussed the issue as an agenda item and following a discussion, voted 2-2 to require masks. The board chairman cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of requiring masks.
Notifications were to go out using normal school communications channels and took effect on Wednesday morning, with “mask required” signs going up on school properties.
Hooper said her request to re-impose a mask mandate was apolitical and simply a measure to avoid large-scale quarantines.
COVID-19 guidelines now say that if someone on campus tests positive, only that person must quarantine if they have been wearing a mask.
Without a mask, everyone who comes into close contact with the COVID-19 case must also quarantine.
“The main thing is to have teachers in school, students in school, and learning go on,” Hooper said.
“…Masks help keep that number down and keep people in the building.”
Using Hooper’s comments as a launchpad, the board discussed the issue as an agenda item that appears each month under “COVID Update-Resolution/Policy Review.”
The current quarantine requirement has gone from 10 to 5 days. The five-day quarantine ends if the person has no symptoms or whose condition has improved with no fever.
Health officials say that a person is most infectious during the two days prior to symptoms to the three days following onset of symptoms.
Someone who has COVID-19 but has no symptoms can still be contagious, which is why everyone who is directly exposed to an unmasked COVID case is required to quarantine.
New Graham County COVID-19 cases have been increasing from a seven-day daily average of two to three just prior to Christmas, to seven as of Jan. 3, and continue to rise.
Cases tend to rise following school breaks and school officials expect the number of new cases to rise on campus starting this week, due to the two-week holiday break.
Board member Pam Knott said schools are the safest place for children to be during this pandemic due to the steps schools take to avoid transmission.
Knott reasoned that masks should continue to be voluntary rather than mandatory.
Boardmember Clark Carringer said he shares the same goals as the other board members, and one goal is to “keep kids in school.”
He said a reinstated mask mandate would affect just 17 school days before the next board meeting on Feb. 1, when the issue will be revisited.
He made the motion to reinstate the mandate.
Board Chairman Rodney Nelson crafted the wording of the motion, including wording that a temporary mask mandate would “prevent a massive quarantine” in the schools.
The board chairman does not ordinarily vote, but does to break a tie.