After around an hour and half of public comment regarding the proposed mask mandate within the Appleton Area School District, the Board of Education voted 4-1 to require masks be worn inside all AASD facilities.
Superintendent Judy Baseman said they were recommending mask requirements at this point in time because they believed it was the best way to keep the kids fully in person for school. She said that the burden rates were much higher than they were in February when kids were just returning to in-person learning. She said it was not a matter of wanting to keep people uncomfortable but instead came from a place of wanting to do everything they could to keep kids in the classroom.
Deb Truyman said there were a few things she heard during public comment that resonated with her. While masks work with correct application she couldn’t believe that was going to happen with the students, so she wondered if they would work in this case. Public commenters had also suggested that there was no empirical evidence that empirical evidence that cloth masks used in schools were effective. There was also a concern that they were a breeding ground for bacteria, particularly in hot classrooms with no air conditioning. She also heard concerns expressed about students mental and emotional health. If masks work then a person was protected. She didn’t feel that she needed to wear one. She said that there are experts on both sides of the topic and as much as people say to follow the science there are experts on both sides. Kids are affected both ways, and her gut said that the original recommendation from the district was the one that should be upheld. She thought they should give it a shot and then adjust accordingly as they had originally decided to do.
Jim Bowman quoted Eleanor Roosevelt, “With freedom comes responsibility.” And people had to consider who might be hurt by what they say or do. Making masks optional would be giving freedom to parents, but taking responsibility for kids in classes was also a priority. A positive test would remove kids from class for a week even if they weren’t hurt by the sickness. He supported a mandate for now and was hopeful that there would be a long-term solution to this horrible pandemic which he thought would be through a increased use of the vaccine ultimately leading to herd immunity. But until cases went down, masking would need to happen.
Ed Ruffolo said the situation saddened him. His high school daughter was looking forward to a relatively normal year, and he didn’t recommend masking with anything but sadness. They’ve looked at recommendations from the CDC, DHS, and DPI, and have heard from many, many doctors that masks are an absolute requirement. He just came back from down South and they’re really struggling. Even if a kid doesn’t get seriously ill, they can’t be in school. Although he wasn’t on the Board last year, he believed they did what they had to do, but they saw the social, emotional, and economic impact of not having kids in school. It was unconscionable to him to experiment with the kids. He thought requiring masking was the safer decision, especially for the kids who cannot get vaccinated. He thought the one positive was that the Delta variant does seem to burn itself out quickly. Until case counts go down, he thought they had to err on the side of caution, as much as it saddened and disappointed him.
Deb said that there was more to health than a positive Covid test. They don’t know what masking does to kid’s health. She felt sad that the leadership team had lost confidence in what they had put on just a few weeks ago. She acknowledged that numbers have gone up and a good chunk of those were in the 0-19 year old range. She wondered how many of those had been in 19 year-olds who have been out partying. She thought the kids were taking an unfair hit when Covid wasn’t really affecting them.
Kay Eggert said that she also had been excited and looking forward to going back to school without masks. She said that they know the Delta virus is different than what was circulating last year. Throughout the last 18 months the district had tried to look to science and medical advice and make decisions based on the best information they had at the time. She thought that everyone close to the situation knew that things had evolved and science often does evolve and they had to make decisions based on what they had. They had reviewed a lot of information and tried to gather objective information. With all of the info I had sought, she was fully in support with requiring masks for the start of the school year, knowing that it would continue to be considered and data would be monitored. She said they wanted to keep track of what was happening with case counts and transmission rates in the community. Required masking was not a decision taken lightly but she thought it was the best decision they could make. The best place for kids to receive school was in in-person. The best place was to start the year with masking and then respond going forward.
Deb asked Superintendent Baseman if, when they reviewed masking in October, if criteria would be established to determine if things were safe.
Superintendent Baseman said that the plan was to have an open discussion at that time. They would bring in medical advisors who would be able to provide any information that the Board was looking for and the Board would then have an open discussion.
Kris Sauter said that she understood Deb’s concern about masking in hot classrooms, but she truest that the district personnel would make sure that students would be given breaks when necessary. She trusted that they would do that. What was challenging for her about this decision was that if she chose to wear a mask then she was protecting herself and others. If she chose not to wear a mask she was not protecting others. It came down to what the greater good was, so she was going to be on the side of starting the year with masking knowing that in October they would be coming back and looking at the data and looking to medical personnel. Hopefully they would be able to move in a different direction after that.
Deb pointed out that what Kris just said could be taken personally as if Kris was telling Deb that she didn’t care about others. She wanted Kris to know that she didn’t believe that she didn’t’ care about others. She just wanted to set the record straight.
They then voted 4-1 to approve mandatory masking in school with Kay, Jim, Ed, and Kris voting aye and Deb voting nay.
View full meeting video here: https://youtu.be/_8x-oEphqMY
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