A pair of Clark-Pleasant schools will revert to a mask mandate a month into a mask-optional policy.
The mask mandate comes after 2% of students were absent with a COVID-19 case at Clark and Break-O-Day Elementary schools. The schools will not return to a mask-optional policy unless less than 1% of students are out with COVID-19.
Students and staff had to wear masks Monday for the first time since Oct. 8, when school was dismissed for fall break. When students returned Oct. 18, the mask mandate had been removed due to a declining number of cases in the schools and the county.
But that trend reversed, and accelerated last week.
Twelve students at Clark-Pleasant schools tested positive for COVID-19 the week of Nov. 8. Last week, that number jumped to 49, more than four times that amount, and the greatest number of cases in a single week since early September.
The rise in cases at the schools mirrors an increase in local COVID-19 cases. On Oct. 30, the rolling average of daily cases in Johnson County stood at 32. As of Tuesday, that number had increased to 82 a day, according to data from the Indiana Department of Health.
