Robbinsville – Face masks are again optional in Graham County, following a unanimous vote of the Graham County Board of Education at its regular meeting Tuesday morning.
The board’s vote comes as COVID-19 spread in both the schools and the county remain low, with only one student positive for the virus as of Oct. 29. No staff were positive for the virus as of Oct. 29, and no staff or students were in quarantine.
Students are still encouraged to wear masks when participating in work with small groups. Due to state of North Carolina rules, masks remain mandatory on school buses and activity buses.
“Students, employees, visitors, parents who go on a school bus or an activity bus have to wear a mask,” said board attorney M. Ellen Davis. “You don’t have a choice in the matter, but in the other situations, Wake County just voted last week to keep its mask mandate both inside and outside because their rates are still too high. Macon County just went optional, but it was not with the support of the health department, because their rates are still high.”
Davis also reminded the board that they were required by state policy to vote every month on whether or not to mandate masks.
“From what I’m hearing there’s a lot involved, and with eight hundredths of a percent out of 1,179 kids is positive and none are quarantined and zero percent of the staff (is positive),” said board Chair Rodney Nelson.
Several people in the meeting room removed their masks after the motion passed.
Graham County Schools had required masks to be worn on all campuses since an Aug. 31 emergency meeting held as the district faced a staggering number of COVID-19 cases and quarantines among both its students and its staff. The district also spent eight instructional days in remote learning, to allow quarantines to end before school resumed.
The board also approved school improvement plans for all three schools. A focus on mental heath could be seen across the most recent rounds of plans, with Robbinsville Elementary School Principal Jaime Hooper saying the the focus was needed as more students required mental health help.
“Our children in DSS custody rate went up 411 percent higher than the state average,” Hooper said. “Our child abuse and neglect rate went up 300 percent higher than the state average. We feel like at Robbinsville Elementary that we have to have a two-pronged way of addressing the needs that our children have.”
She said the school planned to focus on both the mental health component and the learning loss during the pandemic period of remote learning.
“We feel that we have to focus on the learning loss that every child has experienced because of COVID and at the same time, try to address the trauma that we know is happening based on this information,” Hooper said.
Robbinsville High School Principal David Matheson also emphasized an increased, mental-health focus.
“We have added that our staff will participate in at least six hours of mental health training,” Matheson said. “They have started that and that has to be complete by the first of January. Most of our staff have either completed that, or just have one hour (left).”