Schools to start mask-optional

The Cedar Grove-Belgium School Board last week unanimously approved a mask-optional return-to-school plan as presented by Supt. Chad Brakke.

The administration’s proposal includes Covid-19 testing be available five a week per a state program. Positive rapid tests will be followed by tests that get results in two days to avoid false-positives, Brakke said.

Online classes will not be offered. Students missing school due to Covid-19 or other reasons are to work with their teachers as they have in years past on long-term absences.

Positive Covid-19 cases require being quarantined for 10 days, the same as last year, Brakke said.

Parents will be notified if their children were in close contact with a positive case but won’t have to keep them out of school. They are asked to watch closely for symptoms, Brakke said.

If someone in a student’s home tests positive for Covid-19, students will have to remain out of school for 10 days ­— seven days if they have a negative test result.

Parents will be notified of tests and be asked for written permission for them to be done.

“If kids are sick, we’re going to ask parents that they stay home,” Brakke said.

Distancing will try to be maintained but no specific perimeter — such as three or six feet — will be designated, he said.

Of the 38 schools in the district’s Cooperative Educational Service Agency No. 6, three require masks for students younger than 12. Sheboygan County school districts, Brakke said, are implementing procedures similar to Cedar Grove-Belgium’s plan.

“The debates are happening in every board room across the state,” Brakke said.

He acknowledged that as conditions — such as a significant number of students or staff members test positive­ — “all learning options will be reconsidered.”

Board member Laura Schieffer suggested being “thoughtful when we put kids into a virtual setting.

“It’s not good education,” she said, noting High School Principal Josh Ketterhagen’s report earlier in the meeting about high Advanced Placement scores last year.

“When Josh was talking about our scores, that’s due to kids being in school,” she said.

The district last year maintained in-person school with an online option.

In April, the board lifted the requirement that people wear masks in school buildings, after meetings drew more than 50 people requested the change, which was allowed after the state Supreme Court found Gov. Tony Evers’ emergency orders that mandated wearing masks unconstitutional.

The district held an online survey that showed 75% to 80% of parents supported lifting the mask requirement, although the format allowed people to vote multiple times.

Brakke said the teachers association leaders requested the mask requirement remain, citing teachers’ sacrifices to keep students in school and a fear that many students would switch to online learning for the final five weeks of the year.

The administration also wanted to keep the mask requirement until the end of the year.

The mask-optional policy remained throughout two sessions of summer school. No student or staff member contracted Covid-19 during the first summer school session or the start of the second, which ends this week, Principal Jeff Kondrakiewicz said.

About 10 people attended last week’s board meeting and none spoke.

“I think it’s very well thought out. I think it’s a nice plan, flexible,” board Vice President Nancy Niebauer said.