Masks are once again optional for students and staff at Franklin schools after the school board voted unanimously to scrap a mask mandate that had been in place for about a month.
The policy, which took effect Tuesday, also changes quarantine requirements. Following guidance from the Indiana Department of Health, quarantine requirements were nixed once the mask mandate went into effect. With the reinstatement of a mask optional policy, the quarantine requirements return. Students and staff will be required to quarantine for 10 days if they test positive for COVID-19 or are within three feet of a positive case for at least 15 minutes, school officials said.
Students and staff who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 within the last six months do not have to quarantine, according to the guidelines.
Administrators originally pushed for a suspension of the quarantine requirement for asymptomatic students that would coincide with the removal of the districtwide mask mandate, but school board member Ryan Waggoner and Northwood Elementary School nurse Becky Nelson questioned the removal of the quarantine requirement, citing the state health department, which requests schools quarantine close contacts of COVID-19 patients if masks are not required.
The board — and Superintendent David Clendening — decided any decisions about loosening quarantine restrictions would have to wait until at least November.
Masks will again be required at any school where more than 2% of students are out due to testing positive for COVID-19. The mask mandate would be lifted again once the number of COVID-19 positive students dropped to less than 1%. If at least four schools have more than 2% of students out due to positive tests, a district-wide mask mandate would be put in place. It would not be lifted until at least five schools have less than 1% of students out.
Parents who attended the meeting decried the mask mandate, which was already on the verge of being nixed. They expressed concerns about potential negative health effects of mask usage and worries of their constitutional rights being violated.
The policy Franklin schools approved is a good compromise between a districtwide mask mandate and a policy that keeps masks optional regardless of how many cases are in schools.
“Our job is to put forth policy that is contingent on every student in our district having the greatest learning opportunity,” Clendening said. “I didn’t put COVID here, you didn’t put COVID here, but we have to work together, folks. If we don’t, everyone loses.”
