Majority of Hoover school board favors mask requirement for 30 days

Three of the five Hoover school board members on Thursday night said they favor requiring students and employees to wear masks when indoors at school for the first 30 days of school, but the board held off on a vote until Friday.

New Hoover schools Superintendent Dee Fowler presented the school board with a proposal to “strongly recommend” that students and faculty wear face coverings when indoors instead of making it mandatory, but Fowler asked board members for their input.

Three board members — Kermit Kendrick, Craig Kelley and Amy Mudano — said that, because of the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, they would rather require masks for the first 30 days of school and allow the mask mandate to expire after 30 days.

However, if health conditions continue to be poor or worsen, the school board could take up the matter again at that time, board member Craig Kelley said. He thinks it’s important to have safeguards in place, but he doesn’t want to leave the mandate in place indefinitely, he said.

“It is a tough, tough situation,” Kelley said. “This is not a political decision by me. I don’t like government telling me what to do, but this is very, very serious. … This thing is going crazy right now. Give it a few days, and see what happens.”

Board member Kermit Kendrick said the data is suggesting a serious surge in the disease right now, and the Delta variant is highly contagious.

Board member Alan Paquette said he knows the Delta variant is real and serious, but not for everybody. Medical sources are telling him the Delta variant is not a great threat to healthy children, he said.

He’s concerned about the “constant fear-mongering” from government officials and the medical community and concerned about the impact of masks and quarantines on the mental health of young people, he said.

“We are creating an anxious generation,” Paquette said. “I’m concerned if we start off with masks, we will never come out of masks. I think we should leave it in the hands of parents whether their kid is going to wear a face covering or not.”

School board President Amy Tosney said it doesn’t make sense to her to require students to wear masks in school when the rest of society isn’t requiring people to wear masks. If government and health officials are “strongly recommending” that people wear masks, school officials can do the same thing and let people make up their own minds, Tosney said.

Paquette said kids won’t be wearing masks when they get out of school and go shopping or to restaurants or sports venues. Requiring them for the little bit of time they are in school is not going to positively affect the numbers at all, he said.

He doesn’t really believe masks are that effective anyway, especially given the way many people wear them, he said.

“What they’ve created is a nasty petri dish that’s attached to their ears around their face,” Paquette said.

Board member Amy Mudano said health officials have put school officials in a terrible position to have to make decisions about public health issues. However, school officials are responsible for the safety and well being of kids when they are in school, so the school board does have a role in making a decision, she said.

She is concerned about maximizing the ability to keep kids in school, and requiring masks for a while seems the best way to keep the most kids physically in school, she said. She’s concerned that without masks, more students will become infected and have to leave school, she said. School officials should use whatever mitigation strategies they can to prevent that from happening, she said.

Fowler said he plans to prepare two different resolutions for the school board to consider at a special 4 p.m. meeting Friday at Spain Park High School. One would be his current recommendation to “strongly recommend” masks, and if that resolution fails to pass, a second option for the board to consider would be to require masks for the first 30 days of school.

Board members did not take issue with other parts of the revised school reopening plan, as presented Thursday night.

According to that plan, any student testing positive for COVID-19 would be required to leave school for 10 days. School officials would notify parents of other students in that child’s classrooms or bus that someone in their child’s classroom or bus tested positive, and those parents could decide for themselves if they wanted to keep their child home in isolation, Fowler said.

School officials would mandate Alabama Department of Public Health quarantine and isolation procedures only for students who test positive or are showing characteristic symptoms, Fowler said.

Federal law requires masks be worn on public transportation, so anyone riding on a Hoover school bus will be required to wear a mask while on the bus, Fowler said.

There will be assigned seating on buses and in classrooms, according to his recommended plan. There will not be partitions in classrooms unless a parent asks for one for their child, he said.

One new addition to the school reopening plan is a virtual school option for elementary school students, which was not in the original school reopening plan for this year. But parents must choose this option at the beginning of the school year, and it will remain in effect for the entire school year if chosen because the curriculum for elementary virtual school is different, Chief Technology Officer Brian Phillips said.

Schools will provide free lunches and breakfasts for all students again this year, and Fowler said he has directed principals to make sure their cafeterias are not crowded, even if they have to stretch out meal times longer than usual to allow for more social distancing.

Field trips will be allowed, but Fowler said he would be cautious about recommending out-of-state field trips and would reserve the right to cancel any field trips as conditions merit. Athletic teams will follow guidelines established by the Alabama High School Athletic Association, and clubs and after-school programs will resume as normal, Fowler said.

School officials will work to communicate all changes to parents once a reopening plan is approved by the board, including information about how to register students for virtual school, Fowler said.

The first day for students in Hoover City Schools is Tuesday, Aug. 10.