School board votes against requesting lift of mask mandate

The Hot Springs County School District’s Board of Trustees voted against applying for a waiver from the mask mandate during a special meeting March 30, during which Hot Springs County Health Officer Dr. Vernon Miller answered questions and offered testimony.

Board Chair Jennifer Axtell and Board Trustee Will Farrell voted in favor of applying for a waiver.

Board Vice-Chair Sherman Skelton set the tone for the meeting by asking Miller, if a student or school staff member tested positive, and masks were not being worn, would it require a larger number of people to be quarantined than if masks were being worn?

“Yes,” said Miller, who reminded the board that a local rule he agreed to would not require masked students or staff to be quarantined if they came into contact with a COVID-positive person at school, so long as that COVID-positive person was also masked.

Board Clerk Nichole Weyer cited a district survey showing concern over bus drivers’ glasses fogging up due to wearing glasses, but Miller reassured her that, due to the driver already being sufficiently distanced and facing away from the students, the driver would not require a formal variance to substitute their mask for a face shield or similar measure.

“Out of districts our size and larger, we are one of only four districts in the state that have been in school as many days with as many students, and have missed 10 days or less,” said Weyer, who expressed concerns that spring break travel and Easter holiday socializing could lead to a resurgence in infections, and identified continued mask-wearing as one way of keeping any pending quarantine numbers low.

Weyer was the first board member during the meeting to call for the district to simply stay the course in following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols for the remaining eight weeks of school, especially since any students sent home for quarantine now would not have nearly as many parents ready to homeschool them as she believes were available last spring, due to the number of closed businesses.

Board Trustee Clay Van Antwerp cited the same survey as Weyer, as well as comments he’d received from the community, as evidence of how many school staff members and parents alike are about the potential consequences of lifting the mask mandate.

“It’s our moral obligation to help them out, and make them feel safer, out of respect,” Van Antwerp said. “We’ve asked for their opinions, after all.”

Although Skelton acknowledged that the same survey, and other community responses, have also called for the district to “take back local control” over this issue, he argued that the district has done so by submitting and implementing its “Smart Start” plan, in an effort to ensure its students can enjoy spring sports, the prom and an in-person graduation ceremony.

“The only way to control the outcome of this is by continuing the way we have,” said Skelton, who also warned of the educational inequity he sees as inherent in distance learning, which left his own child behind in grade school, and which has left students who have no internet at home unable to take part in virtual learning.

Even Board Treasurer Joe Martinez, who made the motion to apply for the waiver, described himself as conflicted enough that he couldn’t vote in favor of it.

Martinez agreed with Axtell that the mask mandate’s enforcement has been inconsistent, and echoed Farrell’s observation that students can still interact with a broader community in which such masking mandates no longer exist, but like Skelton, Martinez has also had one of his kids fall behind in school due to not being in class, and unlike Farrell, who touted exceptions to mask-wearing within the schools, Martinez believes there’s been “a fair amount of compliance” with the mandate.

By contrast to Van Antwerp, Farrell reported that he hadn’t personally heard from anyone who was against lifting the mask mandate, but he had heard from folks whom he characterized as “disgruntled and angry at not having a choice” in the matter, and he warned against “living in fear until the end of time,” given the number of new virus variants that have emerged.

Miller responded to Farrell by acknowledging that masks were never meant to be “an absolute defense against viruses,” but were instead merely intended to “get us to the point where we could get immunizations,” which are now open to anyone older than 18, and once enough of the population is immunized, Miller deemed the likelihood of having to wear masks indefinitely as “pretty minimal.”

When Farrell asked why his fellow board members were so quick to assume that lifting a mask mandate would lead to an immediate outbreak, Weyer and Skelton pointed out that, due to the lack of available substitute teachers, it wouldn’t require an outbreak to close down the schools again.

“If one third-grade student has COVID, and no one is wearing masks, that entire class and its teacher have to quarantine,” Weyer said. “Only four to five cases of COVID could shut down the whole system.”

Likewise, Skelton and Miller elaborated that what qualifies as an “outbreak” is so tenuously defined, by both the CDC and the state, that if the district were to apply for a waiver to the mask mandate, it would also run the risk of losing local control over how staff and students are quarantined.

“I signed for variance from masks for other parts of town, so people have asked me, ‘Why didn’t you do that for the schools?’” Miller said. “There’s very few people that spend eight hours a day in a restaurant or a grocery store, but they spend eight hours a day in school, fairly close together.”

Miller noted COVID spikes of 10% in Wyoming “over the last week or two,” and 20% nationally, while the relatively isolated Hot Springs County has maintained a low rate of infection compared to other counties such as Fremont, Big Horn and Washakie, which he estimated have experienced “three or four times” the rate of infection.

“The people getting it are now younger, because older people have gotten it, gotten over it or died, or gotten immunized,” Miller said. “I’m pleased with how we’ve done so far, and I’d love to keep it that way.”

Board Trustee Rick Engelbrecht had nothing to add, but voted against applying for the waiver.