Committee says continue mask rules in PW-S schools

Recommendation based on fact that buildings are unlikely to hit threshold at which face coverings are required
By 
BILL SCHANEN IV
Ozaukee Press staff

The Port Washington-Saukville School Board’s Executive Committee recommended Monday that the district continue a mask policy that requires face coverings in schools only when the infection rate reaches a certain threshold but stop time-consuming contact tracing as Covid-19 cases in schools bottom out.

Director of Special Services Duane Woelfel, who heads the district’s Covid Response Team, said that at one point Monday there were no Covid-19 cases among students and staff members. That number rose to three cases by the end of the day, he said.

“We’ve been averaging three or four cases a day,” Woelfel said. 

Also on Monday, the committee was told that the district will notify parents that masks are no longer required on school buses, a decision made in response to a decision last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to no longer require face coverings on buses and vans operated by public and private school systems.

Under the district’s Covid-19 protocols, students and staff members should, but don’t have to, wear masks until the infection rate reaches 3% at a particular school. Then students and staff member have to wear masks for 20 days and until the infection rate drops below 3%.

Several schools in the district reached that threshold twice this school year — once in fall and again shortly after the winter break — but at those times the isolation and quarantine period was 10 days.

Since then, the board has changed those periods to five days to reflect CDC guidance, and because a student or staff member who contracts Covid-19 is no longer considered positive after five days, it’s highly unlikely that schools will reach the 3% mask threshold, administrators said.

Woelfel said the Covid Response Team recommends continuing the current mask protocol because although it is unlikely that the infection rate threshold will be reached, the policy serves as a safeguard in case a new, highly contagious variant of the virus emerges.

“We’d like to keep things in place in case we have to go back to masks and because (until that point) they’re voluntary,” he told the committee.

The committee’s recommendation must be approved by the School Board, and it’s unclear whether some of its members will advocate for ending Covid-19 protocols altogether. 

“At some point, I’d like to talk about how long we’re going to stick with our current protocols given the trend (in infections),” board member Matthew Uselding said during the board’s Feb. 14 meeting. Uselding is not a member of the Executive Committee and was not at Monday’s meeting.

“At what point do we get back to not having any protocols since things are getting back to normal and the vaccine is widely available?” he asked. “The more I talk to parents, the more they’re just ready to get on with it.”

On Monday, the Executive Committee also endorsed a recommendation to stop contract tracing, a laborious process that is no longer needed and irritates parents with multiple email updates, Woelfel said, noting that the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department has stopped contract tracing in schools.

“It would save time and resources for us, and I know parents would appreciate it,” he said. 

The committee did, however, propose an edit to the district’s protocols not recommended by the Covid Response team — to change the wording of its mask requirement so it reads masks “may” be worn instead of “should” be worn if infection rates in schools are below 3%.

“Could we get a little less ‘should’ and say ‘may?’” committee member Doug Miller asked. 

The committee was also told on Monday that the district’s popular Covid-19 testing clinic at Port Washington High School was expected to have rapid-response tests available again this week. The clinic had been out of rapid tests for weeks because of a nation-wide shortage.

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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