The Fox C-6 School District has changed its COVID-19 mitigation strategy for the fourth time this school year.
Board of Education members voted unanimously Tuesday (Dec. 14) to change three parts of the mitigation strategy:
■ The district eliminated the use of in-school modified quarantine rules, which allowed students or staff members potentially exposed to COVID-19 on school premises to continue to attend classes in person as long as they wore a mask and followed additional safety measures, such as being isolated from others while at lunch.
■ It added a provision that allows a classroom, grade level or school building to change to 100 percent distance learning if needed to curb the spread of COVID-19.
■ It clarified families’ responsibilities if they are notified that their child potentially has been exposed to the virus while at school.
“I think this is going to help our principals and teachers, and people will actually be able to have school and not police masks and quarantines,” board president Judy Smith said of the changes.
The Fox district began the school year requiring students, staff and visitors to wear masks in buildings based on the number of COVID-19 positive cases in the county and the transmission level of the virus throughout the county.
The board voted unanimously Nov. 16 to change the district’s mask policy to strongly recommend wearing face coverings but not requiring it in buildings.
Masks are still required on school buses, which is federally mandated.
In addition, if the COVID-19 positivity rate among students and staff at any district school rises above 2 percent, then masks are required at that building for at least 14 calendar days after the positivity surpasses 2 percent, and the positivity rate would have to fall below that threshold before masks are optional again.
The district has had three schools return to a mask requirement for 14 days since masking became optional on Nov. 18.
Fox High School’s COVID positivity rate crossed the 2 percent threshold Dec. 2, and masks were required in that building from Dec. 3 through Thursday (Dec. 16), the day before the district's final day of school Friday (Dec. 17). Fox is on winter break from Dec. 20 to Jan. 3, 2022.
Lone Dell Elementary School’s positivity rate rose above 2 percent Dec. 3, and students, staff and visitors to that school were required to begin wearing masks on Dec. 6 and that will continue until school lets out for the winter break.
Sherwood Elementary School also started requiring masks after its positivity rate went about 2 percent on Dec. 14. Masks are required in that building starting today (Dec. 15) and will continue until school resumes after the winter break.
Fregeau said Fox High School had at least 42 positive cases at its highest point. The school’s positive cases among students and staff was down to 16, or 0.8 percent, today, according to the district’s website.
The Fox district website also said Lone Dell had five positive cases, or 1.1 percent, and Sherwood had 10 positive cases, or 2.4 percent, today.
“It shows the plan we put in place worked,” Fregeau said of cases falling quickly at Fox after masks were required for the 14-day period. “We will have to monitor Lone Dell and Sherwood now because they are under the same guidelines.”
With the elimination of the modified-quarantine policy, Fox will inform families if their child possibly was exposed to COVID-19 at school. However, the student will not be required to wear a mask or follow additional safety measures as long as the student does not test positive for the virus or shows symptoms of COVID-19.
If the student tests positive or starts displaying symptoms, the student is required to stay home from school for 10 days, according to the district’s policy.
“It is just like how we treat any other sickness,” Fregeau said of no longer observing modified quarantine procedures. “We send a student home if they have a fever or cough. It is more in line with our communicable disease policy. It also follows the court decision because the board voted on it, and the policy is not coming from an administrator.”
The latest update to the mitigation policy also includes a provision that says if there is “data demonstrating a spike in particular classrooms, grade levels or schools, additional safety measures may be put into place including temporarily shifting an individual classroom, grade level, or entire school building to 100 percent virtual learning.”
Fregeau said a shift to virtual learning would be a worst-case scenario and last measure taken to stem the spread of COVID-19. He also said Fox would give families as much notice as possible before changing from in-person to distance instruction.
“If it is a classroom, we can probably turn that ship pretty quick. If it is high school or middle school, we will have to make sure we have everything up and running, and that could take a couple of days,” Fregeau said of adjusting a virtual-only instruction model. “We want to be able to continue our students’ education as seamless as possible. We want to make sure they have everything they need and our staff members have everything they need to teach virtually.”
Attorney general calls for end to mitigation efforts
The authority of school districts to create rules regarding health came under fire after Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Nov. 22 that all health orders related to the spread of COVID-19 in the state should be lifted because they violate the state constitution’s separation of power principles because they “place the creation of orders or laws, and enforcement of those laws, into the hands of an unelected official.”
Fox Board of Education members, who are elected, have voted on the district’s mitigation policy every 30 days since the school year began Aug. 24.
Despite the school board’s approval of the district’s COVID-19 mitigation policies, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sent a letter to the Fox District and other school districts and health agencies informing them that the judge’s ruling invalidates all COVID-19 health orders.
On Dec. 8, Schmitt created an email address, illegalmandates@ago.mo.gov, and asked parents to report school districts that enforce COVID-19 orders.
After that, a Fox district parent sent a message to the Attorney General’s Office saying the district was still “contact tracing and doing modified quarantines.”
The message said the parent’s child was being forced to wear a mask and eat lunch alone on a stage in a small gym after being “deemed a close contact of a positive covid case.”
The parent’s message said the modified quarantine policy violates the Cole County ruling.
Schmitt sent a cease-and-desist letter Dec. 9 to Fox after receiving the parent’s email.
Fregeau said the Cole County ruling and Schmitt’s letters did not factor into the administration’s changes to the mitigation plan on Tuesday.
On Dec. 10, Fregeau sent a letter to families addressing the cease-and-desist letter from the attorney general.
“It doesn’t apply to us,” Fregeau said of the Cole County ruling. “We have been voting. If we hadn’t been voting it would have been a different story. The board has met with legal counsel about potential litigation to vote on it every 30 days. In my mind, that was the right decision.”
