Leaders of local school systems wanted to empower families to make the decision on whether their children should wear a mask this year. Their joint announcement Friday that masks would be optional was part of a unified approach to the 2021-22 school year, and they also laid out other parts of their reopening plans.
“We’re going to welcome all our students back in the Owensboro community to full in-person learning, and we’re really excited about that,” said Owensboro Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Constant. “We have a few caveats because we still are paying attention to the health and safety data, but we have turned a major corner on COVID-19 and we hope that we keep going in the direction that we’re going. So we’re excited about it.”
The full reopening plan for OPS can be found here, and the Daviess County Public Schools plan can be found here. The Diocese of Owensboro will release its plan next week.
There’s no secret that last year was full of last-minute changes and unpopular decisions. With some schools fully in-person, some on a hybrid model, and a stretch where all schools were shut down, it was often a challenge to know what was going on.
That’s why this year the three major schools systems — Owensboro and Daviess County public schools along with the Diocese — are at least starting the year all on the same page with a united front.
That means in-person instruction five days a week, with a handful of exceptions for families who do not feel comfortable sending their children to school.
Many mitigation plans instituted last year will also still be in place, such as hand sanitizing stations, extra cleaning routines, and maintaining 3 feet of social distancing when possible. New efforts include bipolar ionization and HVAC systems that provide proper ventilation.
The OPS and DCPS plans fully outline their efforts, while the forthcoming plan from the Diocese will look very similar.
“We know that there’s probably going to have to be changes made along the way,” said David Kessler, Superintendent of the Diocese of Owensboro. “All of our teachers, all of our leadership have done such a great job over the last year of being able to adapt, so we’re very confident in them.”
Vaccinations are not required by any of the school systems, though many staff elected to receive them. Those who are vaccinated will not be required to quarantine if they have been exposed to COVID-19, unless they start to show symptoms.
Contact tracing efforts will still be in effect for both students and staff.
The most anticipated announcement, though, was that masks would be universally optional in local schools.
“I would say for the rest of society, the experience we’ve had over the summer on all different accounts outside of the school district has been a positive one, allowing people to make that choice as to what they feel is best for them,” said DCPS Superintendent Matt Robbins. “I encounter people as I travel. Some have chosen to mask, and I think that’s perfectly fine. It really needs to be a choice option at this point.”
Constant said they want to empower families to make those decisions, knowing that while most families prefer not to mask there will still be some who do.
“If they want to have their children wear masks and take that extra safety precaution, we would welcome that,” Constant said.
Kessler said the number of vaccinated individuals in Daviess County also played a role in the decision. According to the Green River District Health Department, 43.5% of the county’s population had received a vaccination as of Friday.
“Our community has done a very good job with the vaccination effort, and we feel like they have put us in a position to help make us make better decisions when it comes to our kids,” Kessler said. “We are hoping that as new things come out and there’s more opportunity, hopefully we can continue that push and get more and more people vaccinated along the way.”
