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On Monday, masks will become optional at Swain Schools
Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
At Monday night’s monthly school board meeting, the Swain County Board of Education reconsidered the mask mandate. Following discussion, the board voted to make masks optional in its schools beginning Monday, Feb. 21, in a 4-1 decision with Kim Carpenter voting against.
Board members supporting the decision agreed that numbers are down and that going optional with the masks is worth a try.
In other matters Monday, the board recognized the fall cross country conference champions, heard a Covid and school report, as well as growth at the high school, CTE month activities, and recognized food and nutrition staff.
“The county’s numbers are coming down but are still pretty high compared to the peak we had last year. We are just now getting down to the highest level of where we were before,” Swain County Health Department Director, Amber Welch said of positive Covid-19 cases in the county as the omicron wave is petering.
From Jan. 15- Feb. 12, there were 505 positive cases, she said, but in the past week there were only 58, which is significantly less than the weeks before. The guidance for the public is not changing and will stay at five days isolation if positive and five days quarantined if exposed, but the NC school guidance is no longer requiring contact tracing for students.
“Fifty-six of the Swain County population have had the full series of vaccines and 66% have had at least the first dose,” Welch said of the county’s vaccination status.
“Do you have any thoughts on what we should do related to masks?” Carpenter asked Welch.
“That is your decision, but cases are still kind of high right now, and guidance is that you should still mask in indoor settings,” Welch responded.
Director of Student Services Brandon Sutton and Covid Coordinator Amy Smith provided a school report to the board.
“As of Feb. 4, we have a total of 1,785 students and 1.74% of those tested positive (for Covid). At the end of last week, we had 0.67% positive which is coming down and close contacts are coming down also,” Smith said. “As far as staff cases we had three positives last week and three the week before and that is less than 1% of staff testing positive.”
Sutton explained the NCDHHS has updated its Strong Schools guidelines only requiring students and staff to quarantine for five days for those with symptoms or confirmed positive and for an additional five days a mask must be worn.
After hearing all the data, the board each took a turn voicing their thoughts on masks.
“I am in favor of going maskless, and at least trying it,” Board of education member Mitchell Carson said.
“We’ve been basing our decisions on the CDC throughout this entire process. I want to thank our kids and staff for doing the best that they could in this situation. I think starting the 21st, let’s make masks optional, and if we have a large number of kids missing school we can go back and change it,” board member Travis Hyatt added.
Board member Gerald McKinney said that he believes making masks optional is worth a try.
“I think let’s make masks optional starting a week from today, but I would still like to keep distancing in place but let’s try it and then we can change it back if we have to.”
Board of Education member Kim Carpenter said that she felt more comfortable keeping masks in place for now.
“This has been a difficult time for all of us, and I’m going to continue to trust the healthcare professionals that I have trusted with my kids for years. Nobody wants to wear masks, I don’t want to wear masks, but my thoughts are to stay the course until we see the numbers significantly down,” she said.
Member Cody White said it had been difficult dealing with all of the rules and precautions and trying to make the best decisions to keep kids safe since the beginning of the pandemic but that there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.
“It’s really hard to maneuver around the rules. When you’re having to close a classroom and kids are going home and faculty are having to go home, we’ve been fighting that. We always try to make decisions for the welfare and safety of everyone in our school systems. I think this is a good opportunity to ease the mask mandate. I know everyone is tired of it. So, I think since contact tracing is ending and cases are declining, I think we should reconsider the decision.”
The board went on to vote 4-1 in favor of changing school policy to mask optional starting next Monday, Feb. 21 to go along with the state easing restrictions.
In other presentations, Swain High School Principal Sonya Blankenship provided an academic update, concluding Swain’s students were more on track than any other school in the region. She believed that the Board of Education’s decision to hold school two days a week last year, instead of being completely virtual was credited for the progress.
“Sixty-tree% of our kids grew and that is incredible, because compared to other schools who went completely virtual we maintained the course by being in the classroom two days a week,” she said.
Jennifer Brown, Swain school’s nutrition director who will be moving on to a new position Feb. 26, recognized and tearfully thanked school food and nutrition staff for their work, especially providing even more meals to students during the pandemic.
Swain High’s Barbara Sneed spoke about the school’s CTE program and said that February is CTE month.
“Swain has one of the best CTE programs especially for the small size of the district, where students can choose between 10 pathways and 3 of those offer college credit,” Sneed said.
Superintendent Mark Sale spoke of an attendance policy update, where parent excuses increased to six per year or three per semester and that educational trips are also excused if approved by the principle.
The next regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting will be Monday, March 14 at 6 p.m.