School District Ends Mandate For Masks
The Glenwood Community School District Board of Education has ended Glenwood’s mask mandate and is allowing visitors back into the district’s schools.
The policy change passed by a 3-1 margin at the board’s regular monthly meeting May 10 at Glenwood Community High School. Curt Becker, Ann Staiert and Elizabeth Richardson all voted for ending the mandate that’s been in effect since last November. Tim Becker was the lone dissent. Board member Greg Schultz was not present at the meeting.
The change went into effect last Wednesday. Masks are optional for all students and staff. Visitors can now also enter buildings but are restricted to office areas. Visitors for the May 30 high school graduation commencement ceremony will be required to wear masks.
The board had initially instituted its stricter mask policy for all students in grades K-12 in November following a late October spike in cases in the district. Previously, at the start of the school year, the district had implemented a policy that masks were “expected” to be worn by students but were not required. A mask mandate had been in place for teachers and staff since the beginning of the school year.
The board’s decision to end the mask mandate with just weeks remaining in the school year has surprised some. The agenda for the May 10 meeting would seem to back this up as the “Mask Mandate and Visitors to Buildings current/future” line item states … “the current plan is to remain in a mask mandate through the end of the current school year, June 4 as well as not allowing visitors inside the facilities.”
After hearing a presentation from a group of district stakeholders about their concerns with continuing the mask mandate and a prolonged debate amongst themselves, the board reconsidered and decided to end the mandate.
Board of Education President Curt Becker, when reached by email, declined to answer questions related to the board’s decision but did issue a statement.
“At Monday’s meeting, the Board of Education addressed the agenda item of the current mask mandate,” Becker wrote. “The Board considered the impact of any decision on all three of our stakeholders groups: our staff, our students, and our parents/community. After much discussion, a motion was put to the floor and voted on, ending the mask mandate at Glenwood Community Schools.”
Tim Becker, the only board member who voted against ending the mandate, said the group that presented its case for ending the mandate did make a “professional, well thought out” argument. But in the end, he didn’t think the timing was right to stop requiring masks.
“I felt like we were in a stable state and with the short amount of time we have left in the school year, we were better off staying the course and re-visiting it in the fall,” Becker said.
Multiple messages left for Staiert, the board member who made the initial motion that was eventually passed and ended the mandate, had not been returned as of press time.
Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray said the board’s decision didn’t shock him. But he was “somewhat surprised.”
“I support the board’s decision,” he said. “We will make it work and do the best we can with the board’s motion over the next 18 days.”
The morning following the vote, Embray sent out an email to all district parents with the subject line “Masks and Visitors to Buildings.” In that email, Embray wrote the board had ended the mask mandate but that all other COVID protocols would remain in effect . He went on to say, “should we see a spike in positive cases, the board would reconsider their stance on mask wearing and visitors.”
Mills County Public Health was not contacted prior to the board making its decision to end the mask mandate, said program administrator Julie Lynes.
Lynes said if asked, she would have preferred to keep the mask mandate in place through the end of the school year.
“I am hopeful that this summer will give our community more opportunities to increase our vaccination rates and that we will be in a much better position when the new school year starts,” she said.
Darcy Yocum was a part of the group opposing the mask mandate that presented the board with a packet of information that they claimed challenged the efficacy of the policy.
Yocum, who has two grandchildren in the district, doesn’t argue that masks served their purpose during the pandemic. But she feels masks are doing more harm than good. Her biggest worry with continuing the mask mandate was what she called the long-term psychological damage the masks were having on students, especially young learners. Children learn emotions through facial expressions, she said, and “happy” is the easiest of these emotions to recognize, but not behind a mask.
“We are teaching them to fear each other, fear the air they breathe and have terror if they don’t comply with wearing a mask. Fear becomes trauma. That’s the key. Terror becomes trauma. And we are causing trauma. This is no longer a pandemic. It’s an endemic. And it’s time to end the mask mandate.”
Yocum wasn’t sure if the board found her and the group’s presentation compelling but she did celebrate the end of the mask mandate with her granddaughters.
There was some celebration last week among the vaccinated. The CDC rolled back its mask restrictions for vaccinated adults. On Friday, the Iowa Department of Public health revised its guidelines for educational and child care settings. The IDPH has recommended that while COVID-19 positive and symptomatic children should be excluded at schools and daycares, the usage of masks going forward should be optional.
Since the board’s decision, Embray has noticed a separation between staff and parents on the issue. He estimated on social media and in emails he’s received from parents, it’
s 90 percent are in favor of dropping the mandate. For district staff, it’s 90 percent have expressed a desire to kept the mandate in place through the end of the year.
Nearly 80 percent of GCSD staff are vaccinated, according to Embray.
Embray did confirm he has heard from a handful of substitute teachers who told him that they will not return to the district without a mask policy in place. He’s also had a few parents of students that returned to school when masks were mandated but who are now planning to pull their students out to finish the year remotely.
“It’s a small percentage of the overall picture but that’s the collateral damage when your make a decision of this magnitude,” he said.
The mask policy change comes on the heels of the district’s announcement they are ending the school year for students on May 28, a week earlier than originally scheduled,
The change was announced Friday following a special meeting with the board of education.
In an email Monday, Embray said the change was not a result of the removal of the mask mandate. The decision, he said, relates to the district having added three days to the end of the school year “in anticipation of a learning loss for our students.” Days the district no longer needs.
“We have our results and we do not see this learning loss within the grades we test and categories we monitor,” Embray wrote.
Glenwood met its minimum requirement for student days on May 18, according to Embray.
Instead of teaching during what was supposed to be the last week of school, staff will will be attending professional development trainings in early June.