MISSOULA – At their Oct. 12 meeting, the Missoula County Public School Board extended the mask mandate for MCPS schools with a vote of 8-2. The board will reevaluate the decision at their November meeting where they also hope to also consider parameters created by the MCPS COVID Task Force that would give them metrics and measurable targets to lift the mask mandate.
Superintendent Rob Watson presented various COVID statistics for MCPS. As of Friday, Oct .8, there have been 283 total cases since the start of school including 240 students, four of which were from Seeley-Swan High School, and 43 staff. For the week of Oct. 2 – Oct. 8, MCPS had 94 new cases, up 37 from the previous week.
Watson said due to the Missoula City-County Health Department’s delay in contact tracing, they are doing their own contact tracing. They are trying to notify everyone within the first 24 hours. Last week he reported 330 close contacts out, the highest they have had this year.
While not available for the school, Watson said the countywide vaccination rates for at least one dose is 63% for 15-19-year-olds and 45.2% for 12-14 year-olds.
He compared these numbers to last year’s peak case numbers that happened over four weeks around Thanksgiving. Watson said there is a 72% increase in positive cases and a 29% increase in close contacts. He is not surprised that the number of close contacts was lower since students that are masked only have to quarantine if they are within three-feet of the positive individual instead of the six foot radius last year. The six-foot distance still applies to teachers and staff regardless of masking.
Watson said the nurses, who have done most of the contact tracing since the beginning of the year, estimated that there would be 30-40% more close contacts identified if they did not have the universal mask rule in place.
Watson shared a study done in Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona that assessed the association between K-12 school mask policies and school-associated outbreaks. He highlighted that the student reported, “After adjusting for potential described confounders, the odds of a school-associated COVID-19 outbreak in schools without a mask requirement were 3.5 times higher than those in schools with an early mask requirement.”
While the administration recommended continuing the mask covering guideline, Watson said he would like to see a measurable end point. He said the COVID Task Force is working on four metrics to use as parameters when considering face coverings. Three of the four would need to be met to consider a change in the requirement. While the Task Force is still finalizing the exact number for each metric, the four metrics as they were discussed at the last Task Force meeting were:
1. Vaccination availability: This is a yes or no question to ensure vaccinations are widely available and there has been enough time for 5 – 11 year olds to reach immunity.
2. Incident rate for the county: The number has yet to be finalized but they were discussing less than or equal to 20 average daily new cases per 100,000 people for three consecutive weeks.
3. New cases within the District less than or equal to 30 for three consecutive weeks. Again the number 30 is still not finalized.
4. The number of close contacts within the District are less than 175 total for the week. For comparison, Watson said this week there were 330 close contacts and 94 new cases, both much higher than the proposed thresholds. If they were using these metrics, they would not lift the mask mandate because they do not meet at least three of the requirements.
Following Watson’s presentation, the board motioned to continue the Face Covering Guidelines for implementation at all MCPS buildings for all K-12 students and staff and direct the MCPS COVID task force to set specific parameters, including both the timeline and conditions, by which the face covering guidelines will be considered for modification.
After several trustees spoke in support of maintaining the face covering mandates based on the increase in cases and issue with more students being identified as close contacts if the mandate was lifted, Trustee Jeffrey Avgeris said he was going to present an alternate view that represents parents that are not in favor of universal masking.
Avgeris felt the Arizona study was not comparable to MCPS. He presented numbers from the Kalispell School District that currently has no mask requirements in their schools or community. Flathead county is 20-30% smaller than Missoula County. MCPS has had 283 cases and Kalispell schools have had 141 cases. While he recognized there was a lot of variables that he couldn’t account for in these statistics, the new cases were on the same track.
“What we are doing in the schools means a lot less than what we are doing in the communities,” Avgeris said. “I don’t feel like the decision is as clear cut because of so many variables.”
He presented an amendment to the face covering requirements that added a timeline where the board would consider the metrics presented by the COVID Task Force and reevaluate the mask mandate at the November meeting in four weeks. Despite Chair Diane Lorenzen’s concern that discussing masks at every meeting takes the board’s focus away from more important business, the amendment passed 6-4 with Trustee Grace Decker, Nancy Hobbins, Chair Diane Lorenzen and Arlene Walker-Andrews dissenting.
Following public comment and a request of 33 parents to lift the mandate, the board voted 8-2 to continue universal face coverings for all staff and students. Trustees Jennifer Vogel and Michael Gehl voted against the continuation of masking.
The board will consider the parameters and metrics presented by the COVID Task Force and reevaluate the face covering rule at their Nov. 9 meet which starts at 6 p.m.
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