The Fox C-6 School District will no longer require students, staff and visitors to wear masks inside its buildings.
On Tuesday (Nov. 16), Board of Education members voted unanimously to strongly recommend but not require face coverings.
The board also agreed that if the COVID-19 test positivity rate among students and staff at any district school rises above 2 percent, then masks will be required at that building.
If that happens, masks will be required in the 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.
Masks will still be required on school buses, which is federally mandated.
The district’s new mask guidelines will go into effect Thursday (Nov. 18).
When the Fox district started the school year Aug. 25, masks were required whenever Jefferson County was in the red or orange levels – the highest levels on the Jefferson County Health Department’s COVID-19 four-color warning system. Those red and orange levels indicate a high or substantial transmission level based on a seven-day average of positive cases among 100,000 people and the county’s positivity rate over a seven-day period.
The new guidelines eliminate marrying Fox’s mask policy to the color indicator system and instead uses the district’s internal COVID-19 case numbers to decide when masks should be worn.
“It will allow us to develop a sense of continuity where we are not changing on our kids, families and staff every couple of weeks with the color change,” said Fox Superintendent Paul Fregeau, who recommended the new policy to the board. “It gives us a little more internal control. We will use internal data to be more responsive to specific situations.”
Fregeau said it became important for Fox to rely on its own data instead of countywide data after the district changed from requiring masks to making masks optional and then back to requiring masks over a few weeks at the end of October and start of November.
“We all thought the color code was the way to go, but when we were operationalizing it, we understood we had to change for the betterment of the learning environment for the kids,” he said.
The district also will continue to allow students and staff to attend school under modified quarantine guidelines, which allows students or staff members potentially exposed to the virus at school to continue to attend class as long as they wear a mask and are not showing COVID-19 symptoms.
The Health Department announced today (Nov. 17) that the county was in the red status for both the seven-day rolling average, at 204.4 cases per 100,000 people, and for the positivity rate, which was 10.9 percent.
The Fox district reported on its website today that 38 students or staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and 125 students or staff members have been excluded from school after potentially being exposed to the virus. There also are 308 students and staff members observing modified quarantine procedures at school.
On Tuesday, Fregeau also announced that Fox was working with Pharmax Pharmacy to set up vaccination clinics in December and January for children, ages 5-11. The Pfizer vaccine was approved for children younger than 12 on Nov. 2.
A parent or guardian who wants their child to be vaccinated will have to accompany the child to the clinic and sign a waiver to allow the vaccination to be administered, said JP Prezzavento, the district’s communication and instructional technology coordinator.
On Tuesday, Fregeau said Fox officials were still working out the details to hold the clinics, and the district hoped to announce plans within a week.
“They can vaccinate about 120 children an hour,” Fregeau said. “We will have a three-to-four-hour clinic. We will not be able to vaccinate all our children, if their parents chose to have them vaccinated, but it will take a big chunk out of it for people who may have trouble accessing the vaccination through their pediatrician.”
