Masks optional at high school, required for students in grades 4K-8

By Kim McDarison

The School District of Fort Atkinson Board of Education deliberated Tuesday for over an hour before approving two new protocols for masks affecting students and staff. 

New protocols, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 27, include optional masking for students and staff at the Fort Atkinson High School.

Masks continue to be required indoors in all district buildings for all students and staff, while children are present, in grades 4K-8. 

The district’s requirements make an exception for students in grades 4K-8 who are participating in co-curricular athletic activities. The exception applies to students who are actively engaged in the athletic activity. Those waiting to play or “sitting on the bench” are required to wear masks, according to the new protocols.  

An exception to masking for students in grades 4K-8 who are actively participating in performances also was approved. 

The new protocols will remain in place until Dec.16, at which time they will be allowed to expire unless new action is taken. 

No action by the board was required to allow the earlier mask requirement at the high school to expire, School District Superintendent Rob Abbott explained Tuesday. 

Action to extend the requirement for 4K through eighth-grade students and staff was approved by a 4-1 vote, with board member Amy Reynolds voting against the measure. 

Action to allow an exception to masking for students in grades 4K-8 who are actively participating in a co-curricular athletic activity received unanimous approval.  

A motion, extending a mask requirement for students in grades 4K-8 engaged in all school activities, crafted to continue the mask requirement when students in grades 4K-8 are participating in school events at the high school, was also approved by a vote of 4-1, with Reynolds casting the ‘no’ vote. 

Twelve speakers

During Tuesday’s meeting, 12 district residents and extended community members, some of whom identified themselves as residents of Jefferson and Sullivan, made public comment. A majority spoke against continuing a mask requirement for the district. 

Fort Atkinson resident Ron Martin said his two children graduated from Fort Atkinson High School “in the past decade. 

“And I learned in the past month, I’m also a domestic terrorist,” as defined, he said, by the president of the National School Boards Association (NSBA), whom, he noted, wrote a six-page letter in September, stating, according to Martin, “that some parents’, and I quote: ‘heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.’” 

He noted that the letter “prompted a forceful response from (U.S.) Attorney General Merrick Garland,” and the letter and Garland’s response received nationwide attention from parents and parent advocacy groups. 

“The NSBA letter acknowledges the need to hear parents; the letter also states that America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat from parents. I guess I’m one of those simply for showing up tonight and exercising my First Amendment rights,” Martin said. 

“This is where we are in today’s America,” he said.  

Martin continued: “In Fort Atkinson, the school board president at the school board’s last meeting during mask policy debate, said: ‘we have some great parents in this district. Others are not so good. In those cases, we need to do much of the heavy lifting in parenting those kids.’ 

“I’m personally offended, Mark.” 

He was interrupted by board President Mark Chaney for making personal attacks. 

Fort Atkinson resident Sara Forester told the board she had sent emails to members and received few responses. Referencing an email she claimed to have sent a month ago, she read: “I have reviewed the most recent communication from the district regarding the updated COVID mitigation policies with the mask mandate for the entire district. The communication indicates if students do not comply with the mask mandate the student would be subject to disciplinary actions according to the student code of conduct.”

She reviewed the handbook and student code of conduct section, she said, adding that she did not see specific information about the mask mandate. She also did not see, she said, the mandate included as a policy or bylaw of the board. 

“County, state and federal agencies have provided recommendations to school boards, but these are not laws or ordinances,” she said. 

She asked: “How can we enforce noncompliance of something that is not even listed as mandatory in the handbook? How do I know if I’m being noncompliant if it is not an official rule, bylaw or policy? How can something be legally enforced if it’s not an actual policy or bylaw?”

She pointed to what she described as a “masking agreement” presented to students by a high school teacher, which contained, she said “inappropriate language.” Citing the agreement, she claimed the agreement informed students that they would “suffer the indignity of having a mask mandate violation written in your permanent school record.” 

“Any type of agreement given to our children should also be sent to the parents for review. This is unacceptable and it makes me wonder if other teachers are using tactics like this as well.” Forester continued. 

She asked the district to allow students and parents to make decisions about masks.

Addressing Chaney, she said: “you will never have a right to parent my children.” 

Fort Atkinson resident Dale Prisk said he believed the Jefferson School District was handling mask requirements better than the School District of Fort Atkinson. 

“They have a plan; their plan is allowing kids to get the best quality education they can,” which is in-person learning, he said, adding: “kids just learn better without a mask on.” 

Looking at data on the district’s website, he said, “we have less cases in our district than Jefferson and we are requiring these masks.”

“At some point, masks have to come off,” and, he said, “if they can’t come off now, when we have 11 cases in our entire district of 2,700 students … when are we taking them off?” 

Fort Atkinson resident Jon Winski said: “freedom to not mask creates personal comfort … but it also risks unintentional spread of COVID. The freedom to mandate masks prohibits the unintentional spread of COVID to about 99% of us. It is a very few, less than 1%, who can’t wear masks. I have surgical experience,” he said, adding that he is required to wear a mask during surgical procedures. He can function normally while wearing his mask, he said, adding, “last I checked, numbers in Jefferson are going down, that’s good, but I think enrollment is also going down in our schools. Like many, my family has chosen online, virtual schooling, that’s not our first choice, we’d love to have our kids back; I believe kids do learn best in person … but right now, the risk is just not worth it to us.”

He asked the board to follow CDC’s recommendations. 

Roni Doebereiner, Fort Atkinson, said she grew up and went to school in Jefferson, but chose to move to Fort Atkinson. 

“I am ashamed of this district. I pulled my children and put them in Jefferson,” she said, adding that she has sent emails to the board and is “aware, how you don’t respond.” 

“To use a child’s death to mask these children, I think you know, it’s bull … and Mr. Chaney, I think you should resign,” she said. 

Kurt Horwath, Fort Atkinson, said he has addressed the board for the last three meetings. He said he wanted to remind the board that “we are in America, where an oath was taken: one nation under God.” He next read a Bible verse. He asked for love and respect from and for everyone. 

“We have a good district, but this is really tearing us apart,” he said. He advocated for parental choice relative to masks. 

Ashley Weiser, Fort Atkinson, said she was appreciative of the board’s decision to require masks, noting that the number of cases in her daughter’s kindergarten class was “drastically reduced,” and she felt safer. She asked the board to continue to require masks until children could be vaccinated. 

Amy Larson, Fort Atkinson, said she believed an earlier decision to go back to requiring masks was based on “emotions and outside pressure.” She asked the board to look “purely at numbers,” saying “we will never have zero cases.” According to data, she said, the district has a 4/10ths of a percent positive rate. She proposed the district use 3% as a threshold. When the infection rate goes above that metric, she said, the district could mask. When below the threshold, the district could allow parental choice. She said the Jefferson School District was using a similar metric. She also asked for more transparency, saying the district needed a “more in-depth dashboard, front and center on our website, one you can actually find, so we all know where we are at and where we need to get.” 

She praised districts in Jefferson and Whitewater, which, she said, “are doing an extraordinary job.” 

Sullivan resident Cheryl Metcalf said her children go to Jefferson schools. “We’ve got an excellent and awesome plan,” she said, adding that she is a registered nurse and she has “serious concerns with the way this is being handled. I get that you are following CDC guidelines, but my challenge is this: critically think for yourselves.” She asked: “Why have the CDC guidelines remained constant when all of the variables around the disease have changed?” 

According to Metcalf, COVID-19 is not overwhelming any pediatric units in area hospitals. She said cases without serious illness “are a good thing; they are helping to increase immunity in a population that cannot yet get the vaccine.” 

The end of a pandemic comes when the population becomes immune to the disease, she said. 

According to Metcalf, 725 kids have been infected in Jefferson County, and, she said, “that’s 725 kids that are naturally immune now.” 

Of the 725, she said, 4 kids went to the hospital. “None of them are still there,” she said. 

She called masking “hygiene theater.”  

Jennifer Slak, Fort Atkinson, thanked the board for following CDC guidelines for the last month, saying: “We truly believe it has made a difference. Positive cases are declining and, as far as I am aware, there have been no major outbreaks.” 

According to Slak, she learned, “through a reputable source, our home hospital’s ICU is full of COVID patients right now.” She asked the board to keep the mask mandate in place until at least the January board meeting, by which time, she said, she hoped all eligible children whose parents wanted them to be vaccinated, would have an opportunity to do so. 

She said she would take her children out of school if he board allowed the mask requirement to expire. 

Jefferson resident Christie Cook said she is a registered nursing who works in the Fort Atkinson area. She has five children, whom, she said, attend Fort Atkinson schools. As part of her job, she explained, he goes into people’s homes, most of whom, she added, are elderly. She called COVID, as it related to elderly people, “a crisis we are facing.” In her experience, she said, people under the age of 50 are not facing serious disease unless they have co-morbidities. 

She asked the board to let parents decide whether their children should wear masks. 

Dan Neugart, Fort Atkinson, thanked the board for adopting the mask requirement at the last school board meeting. He told the board that he hoped it would not lift the requirement “too soon,” sending the district back to a potential for rising cases. He suggested the requirement be extended to the January school board meeting at which time it could be readdressed. In addition, he suggested the district partner with Jefferson County to offer vaccination clinics for children when the vaccine becomes available. 

Board deliberations

Prior to board discussion, Abbott shared information which centered largely on COVID-19 statistics and the various decisions the board might make to end or extend a mask requirement. 

Aided by slides, Abbott noted that the district’s current number of positive student COVID cases is 11 and the current number of positive staff cases in 1. The district’s dashboard is updates every Friday, he said. 

Addressing the use of metrics to make decisions about COVID-related policies, Abbott said, in the past, metrics used were delineated by government agencies as opposed to the district arbitrarily making its own determinations, and “a great many” community members told the board they thought the practice imposed decisions on mitigation strategies, adding that determination through the use of more local impacts might, in their estimations, prove more appropriate for Fort Atkinson.

Some area districts have started to use locally determined metrics for mask use, Abbott said, adding that the metrics have not been based on actual guidance as far as he was aware. 

“One district was using a 3% positivity rate to determine mask use and another, with a virtually identical dashboard, used a measure of less than 1% in some cases,” Abbott said. 

If the district were to return to a metric-based system, Abbott said, he believed the determined decision-making points would be viewed favorably by some community members and negatively by others. 

Still, he said, district staff could explore the option at the board’s request. 

Abbott reminded the board of policies in place to alert families about exposures to COVID at school and the various choices offered to families who have a family member who has been exposed to a person who has tested positive. 

Choices include quarantining, getting a COVID test, and wearing a face covering when returning to school. 

Last year, during the time when the district had in-person learning, Abbott said, 872 students were quarantined after being identified as a close contact. Of that number, 21, or 2.4%, became COVID positive during their 14-day quarantine. Some may have contracted the virus outside of school, he said. Of the 21 students, he continued, 13 were at the high school, five were at the middle school, and three were at one of the district’s elementary schools. 

“All positive cases do not originate at school, Abbott said. “It is very hard often times to determine exactly where one contracted the virus,” he added. 

He offered a list of considerations for the board relative to mask requirements. 

If the board took no action, he said, the district’s mask requirement would expire and the district would return to a mask-optional policy. 

The board could take action and impose one or several of the following options: 

• Maintain indoor mask requirements for all when students are present. 

• Require indoor masking for non-vaccinated eligible populations when students are present (the requirement would apply to students in 4K through eighth grade). 

• Require indoor masking for large indoor gatherings such as auditorium events, athletic contests and assemblies. 

• Allow an exception to a mask requirement when a student is actively engaged in a sport or a performance. The measure would require masks for students not actively participating in the activity, but allow a student actively engaged in the sport or performance to remove the mask.  

During discussion, board member Kory Knickrehm said he believed a decision about mask requirements had been made more complex since the board’s last meeting because some athletic activities were moving indoors. 

Board member Adam Paul said he was supportive of the idea of allowing athletes participating in sports to remove their masks, citing the distinction that students participating in extracurricular activities like sports could make a decision not to participate. The activity was not compulsory.

“I don’t expect kids to be running up and down a basketball court with a mask on,” he said. 

Board members noted that students at the high school level have had opportunities to be vaccinated. They found agreement in allowing the mask requirement at the high school level to expire. 

Board member Rhona Buchta said she was supportive of keeping a mask requirement in place long enough to allow younger students an opportunity to be vaccinated.

Citing an extension of a mask requirement at the middle and elementary school levels, she said: “I don’t want to do this forever, but I do think it’s important to give parents who want to have their kids vaccinated and can’t right now, a chance to do that. It sounds like that’s going to happen real soon here in November.” 

Board members discussed keeping the mask requirement at the elementary and middle school levels active until Jan. 20, which is when this year’s first semester will end. Many felt that was too long. 

Paul said that while he believed the mask issue was important, having to revisit it at every board meeting was distracting the board from its other work. 

Said Reynolds: “This is a public health issue. This is not a school board issue. The Jefferson County Public Health Department should be the ones making these decisions and not us. If they don’t say everybody needs to mask; if they’re not telling us that … I don’t think we should. I think we should follow them, because they are obviously the experts in public health, and they’re not putting out any end dates. They’re not saying that they require anything. They are giving strong recommendations.”

She expressed frustration with what she called the department’s inconsistencies, adding: “They need to do their job.”  

Said Abbott: “I have been in communication with the county a great deal over the past year and a half or so. Most recently, I directed a letter to their leadership quite explicitly letting them know of my and your displeasure with the fact that they were not moving beyond recommendations and that they were leaving it to individual school boards, which triggered a meeting with their leadership at Luther (Elementary School) a week or so ago.” 

His impressions after the meeting, he said, were that the department had “no interest in changing their operation from what has been to now.” 

Reynolds restated her position that she believed masking should be a parent’s choice. 

“I think they need to wear them a little longer,” Paul said. 

Chaney agreed, noting that he supported keeping a mask requirement for students in grades 4K-8 until they could be vaccinated.  

Board members agreed that Dec. 16, which is the date of the board’s December meeting, would allow enough time for children to be vaccinated. 

“We can always revisit it, we are not saying we can’t,” Knickrehm said.

Without extenuating circumstances, Buchta said, she did not see a need for the board to revisit the issue until Dec. 16, at which time, she said, she hoped the requirement would be allowed to expire for all students within the district.