By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
School District Superintendent Frank Hauser, speaking at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting, expressed optimism that progress in controlling COVID in the community would allow mask wearing in the schools to become optional some time in the coming year.
At the present time, Hauser said, there are no known COVID cases in the local schools, where students and staff have been wearing masks since schools reopened in the fall for fulltime in-person instruction.
The regular School Board meeting was held in the Centennial Hall auditorium, and about half of the three-hour meeting was taken up with public testimony. About 30 people commented on masks, vaccines and the coronavirus in general. All but one were opposed to the school district’s mitigation policies. Many expressed doubts on the efficacy of masks and vaccination, while others voiced concern that masking will have negative impacts on the psychological wellbeing of children.
One speaker called school mitigations “authoritarian,” and another likened the coronavirus response to “Nazi Germany.”
Several used their allotted three minutes of speaking time to play an audio recording in an effort to cast doubt on measures meant to limit the spread of COVID.
Most of those who commented left during the break that followed the public comment period, and Hauser made his report when the meeting resumed.
“We currently have zero COVID-19 cases associated with our buildings,” Hauser said. “We are currently in high (alert) but you can see a striking difference from where we are now and where we were back in July and August. I have been saying from the start that masks aren’t forever, from the start of the school year. On Monday, the Sitka School District set a goal of transitioning to masks optional in mid-January.”
The decline in infections in Sitka and the increasing availability of vaccines are reasons for optimism, he said.
“First, transition to masks optional in mid-January is a goal and not a deadline,” Hauser said. “We’re looking ahead to after all of our schools have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and setting a goal for the future. I’m very optimistic we’ll meet this goal because of the alert level changes likely from the state… our generally declining cases and the availability of vaccines for all who want them.”
Overall, about 86 percent of Sitkans age 12 to 18 have been fully vaccinated, he reported, citing the latest data from the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services. In contrast, he said, fewer than half of those in that age range in Fairbanks have been vaccinated, and fewer than a third in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough have been inoculated.
Fairbanks schools moved to require masking earlier in the school year, but masks are not required at schools in Mat-Su schools, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Hauser said future mitigation policy decisions in Sitka will be assisted as the state moves away from a system of setting alert levels that only counts virus cases to one that includes factors such as hospitalizations.
“This change might come in the late-December, early-January time frame, so that’s helped us set our mid-January goal in SSD,” Hauser said. “The state’s likely plan is to move away from case-driven alert levels. So it won’t just be numbers of positive cases driving alert levels, but also things like hospitalizations. If current trends continue, this would likely result in a favorable alert level change in Sitka and move us into those lower levels.”
The timeline for the mask optional goal will be revisited if the virus situation in Sitka declines in January, he said.
Current district policy requires staff and students to wear masks when the alert level is at high, substantial or moderate.
School officials did not directly reply to those who spoke in the public comment portion of the meeting, but board president Amy Morrison said later in the meeting that everyone involved cares about Sitka’s kids.
“We’ve received a lot of emails in the past few days, obviously a lot of people here tonight to testify. And I think the common thread is that we all care about our kids, and that’s the most important thing to remember,” Morrison said. “While we may not always agree on how we handle that or what the mitigations are or what our education looks like, what our curriculum looks like, you can go into a whole lot of different things, but we all care about our kids.”
Board member Paul Rioux also commented, “A lot of folks spoke tonight about mental health and anxiety that’s become a lot more prevalent.”
Despite the mask rule in public buildings, few of the those attending the meeting wore masks.
In the regular business portion of the meeting Sitka High Principal Sondra Lundvick said she was eager for the chance for a return to normalcy as the basketball season ramps up.
“We’ll have a full slate of games for three nights (in mid-December). We’ll have pep band playing, we’ll have cheerleaders on the sideline. We’re trying to get back into the school spirit and really get school going again,” Lundvick said.
The board also heard from local AmeriCorps director Sarah Lawrie. She praised Sitka’s AmeriCorps volunteers for their work in schools, but noted that many struggle to afford housing and other living expenses in Sitka.
That’s a problem for the whole town if Sitka is to attract volunteers from the nonprofit organization.
“It’s not technically in the job description, but if you can’t find housing then you’re not going to have any AmeriCorps members,” she said. She said she helps them find housing, “but I don’t place them in housing.”
In other business the board also voted to accept the results of the district financial audit, discussed the formalization of board goals, and approved the purchase of online software.
The board’s next scheduled meeting is Jan. 5, at Centennial Hall.
