The Fox C-6 School District will require students, staff and visitors to wear masks inside district buildings beginning Monday (Nov. 8), after changing its mask-wearing policy late last week, making them optional.
The district announced the change today (Nov. 4), the day after the Jefferson County Health Department reported both of the major indicators – the number of new COVID-19 cases and the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests – are in either the orange or red levels, the two highest levels on the agency’s Color Guidance Indicator system.
“We understand that this change will not be favorable to everyone,” Superintendent Paul Fregeau said in a letter sent to parents and staff members this evening. “Please know that all decisions we make in Fox C-6 truly have the health and well-being of our students, staff members, and families at the forefront.”
Fregeau also said in the letter that going forward the district will inform parents and staff members about COVID-19 masking policy modifications on Thursday evenings if there is a change in the county’s COVID indicators that require adjusting it.
The district, which started the school year Aug. 25 requiring masks be worn, changed its policy on Oct. 29, making masks optional after the county had fallen to the yellow level for the positivity rate.
Board of Education president Judy Smith said she would like to see Fox’s mask-wearing policy changed so the district does not continually adjust the requirement when the county’s color level changes. She said she will ask for the district to have a mask-optional policy at the Nov. 16 board meeting.
“We may try one more time to see if we can’t change things up a little bit,” she said. “Will it go? I have no idea.”
Board meetings are typically held at 7 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday of every month at the Fox C-6 Service Center, 849 Jeffco Blvd., in Arnold.
During the week of Oct. 24-30, the county’s positivity rate rose to about 9.1 percent, putting it back in the orange level, the Health Department announced Wednesday (Nov. 3). During the prior week, the positivity rate was about 7.7 percent, which was in the yellow level, or the second lowest level on the warning system.
At the time, though, the Health Department said the county was still in the red level, the highest level on the system, because the number of new COVID-19 cases in the county put it in the red level, which indicates high transmission of the virus in the community.
The Health Department said that if the two indicators are different colors on the warning system, the agency uses the higher color level, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.
Previously, Fox school officials said the district’s mitigation plan required people to wear a mask inside a district building if Jefferson County is in the red or orange level of the county’s COVID Color Guidance Indicator.
“On Oct. 29, we (Fox officials) lifted the mask requirement due to the COVID-19 Color Guidance Indicator reflecting that Jefferson County no longer had a positivity status in the red or orange level,” Fregeau said during Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting. “We will continue to monitor all indicators each week, and if all are orange or red, we will have to make a similar decision in the other direction.”
The Health Department also announced Wednesday that the county is still in the red level when measuring the total number of cases per 100,000 people in a seven-day period, which was at 154.7 from Oct. 24-30, a slight increase from the prior week. The department also reported a decrease in youth cases with 72 new youth cases between Oct. 24 and Oct. 30 after reporting 82 new youth cases the prior week.
According to the district’s website this evening, 31 students or staff members had COVID-19, and 87 students or staff members were quarantined from school because of possible contact with the virus. In addition, 113 students or staff members were following modified-quarantine rules, which allows someone possibly exposed to the virus to remain in school if they wear a mask and show no symptoms, the district reported.
Fox implemented a mask-wearing policy Aug. 17, eight days before the school year started. Board members Carole Yount, Jim Chellew, Krystal Hargis, Michelle Chamberlain and Vicki Hanson voted to require masks, and April Moeckel voted against the mask-wearing policy. Smith was not at the meeting.
The board adjusted the district’s quarantine rules to adopt the modified-quarantine model Sept. 21. Board members voted unanimously to make the change.
The first attempt to adopt the modified-quarantine model failed Sept. 7 when Yount, Chellew, Hargis, Chamberlain and Hanson voted against it and Smith and Moeckel voted in favor of the change. That modification also included a provision to make masks optional at Fox and Seckman high schools, and it was proposed by Smith.
“You know where everybody sits on all of this,” Smith said. “They are not wrong to want to be cautious.”
Smith said many emails the board receives about Fox’s mask policy say the district should continue to require masks until children can be vaccinated. On Wednesday, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced children 5 to 11 years old are now eligible to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
However, Smith said she doesn’t believe having the vaccine available to school-age children will change many people’s minds about masks.
“I don’t think that will make them happy either,” she said. “I don’t think you are going to have a whole lot of kids get vaccinated.”
