Robbinsville – Face coverings will be optional when the Graham County School District begins its 2021-22 school year on Monday, Aug. 16.
The Graham County Board of Education voted unanimously to leave the decision on whether students wear masks to their families during its regular meeting Tuesday morning.
However, the board will convene to discuss masks again should cases in the district begin to rise.
The vote followed a presentation on the state of COVID-19 in Graham County, from health director Beth Booth and Graham County Department of Public Health Head Nurse Lorita Eller.
Prior to the vote, Superintendent Angie Knight said that in surveys conducted with both district families and district staff, an overwhelming majority of both wanted masks to be optional.
“The majority of votes at 88.8 percent of this parent survey was for optional masks,” Knight said.
Although Booth said the Centers for Disease Control recommended masks in schools, she would work with the district on whatever the board chose to do.
However, she emphasized that the Delta variant was known to be more contagious, and that the county was seeing an increase in cases.
“We’re looking at a pretty high viral spread of the Delta Variant,” Booth said. “As far as the spread across the unvaccinated and vaccinated, we are seeing breakthrough cases.
“They are lesser than our unvaccinated folks, and they are not seeing the severity of the diseases in our vaccinated versus our unvaccinated folks.”
She said that under the guidelines, if an entire classroom was masked and a student tested positive for the virus, the entire classroom would not have to quarantine. If a student tested positive in a classroom where not everyone was masked, anyone who was not vaccinated would have to quarantine. The Delta variant is known to be more contagious than previous COVID-19 variants, with one person believed to be able to infect up to six people in a group setting.
“We’ve been seeing around six positive cases a day for some time, at least a month,” Eller said. “We are actually above where we were at this time last year as far as positivity rate. The week of July 25-26, we were over 10 percent positivity case.”
The Pfizer vaccine is currently the only vaccine approved for use in people under 18, with it being approved for those aged 12 and up. However, Booth said there were trials underway for it to be used to vaccinate ages two and up.
“It seems the Delta Variant is more communicable with everyone, but especially with children,” Eller said. “There has been an increase in children with that strain.”
Knight said a mobile vaccine unit would be at the district’s elementary school, middle school and ninth grade orientations. The board also took a clear stance against both pro-mask or anti-mask bullying in its resolution.
“I know this is going to be a huge decision for us no matter which way we go and I know if we go with the option – and we have some kids wearing a mask and some kids not wearing a mask – you may have to deal with the issue of some kids, I don’t know,” board member Pam Knott said.
“I think we need to make it very clear that it’s a personal decision, and we would treat it like any other bullying issue,” Knight added.