The Mendota High School Board held a special meeting Tuesday to discuss COVID-19 mitigations for the upcoming school year and get public input on the matter.
Superintendent Jeff Prusator made a presentation to the board about measures that will be in place, survey results, a recommendation for testing as well as options for mitigations.
He then answered questions from the board before hearing from three members of the public with two urging the board not to require masks and one wanting masks.
“Let’s take politics out of it and let’s take personal opinions out of it and what decisions are we going to make to make sure the health and safety of our students, staff and families is our No. 1 priority,” Prusator said.
Based on surveys, Prusator said he expects about 25% of the Mendota students will be fully-vaccinated when school starts.
“Regardless of your feelings about the vaccine, a very important piece of data we have to take into consideration (when deciding mitigations) is what percentage of the student body is vaccinated,” Prusator said. “Honestly, I’m a little bit disappointed right now. I think we’re going to be around 25%. I hope the numbers come in better than that.”
Prusator said the school will collect vaccination information on students for contact tracing purposes because vaccinated students won’t need to quarantine.
He said the school will verify the vaccine information and has already discovered one vaccine card that couldn’t be verified through I-CARE, the Illinois Comprehensive Automated Immunization Registry Exchange.
If a student’s vaccine can’t be verified or if families refuse to provide it, the student will be categorized as unvaccinated.
“I don’t think the honor system is the way to go,” Prusator said.
Prusator strongly recommended the school participate in SHIELD Illinois, a free testing program that would come to Mendota High each Friday, collect saliva samples and have results within 24 hours.
“The No. 1 priority is how we’re going to keep students safe and how we’re going to keep staff safe,” Prusator said. “We can do it by testing and better yet, it’s free, so why would you not do it? The way we’re going to slow the virus down is keeping asymptomatic people out of the building. I think it’s a very valuable tool.
“At some point, everybody has to work together or I don’t know how this pandemic is going to stop.”
The school surveyed parents, staff and students about wearing masks in school.
Parents were asked from 1-5 how comfortable (1 being the least comfortable) they were with masks being optional in school and 127 of 165 responses (77%) marked 4 or 5 and 10.9% marked 1 or 2.
When the question was how comfortable are you with masks being optional for unvaccinated students, 60% marked 4 or 5 and 27.3% marked 1 or 2.
“That would be a consideration for the board to take into making a decision,” Prusator said. “Our job is to come up with a plan where vaccinated and unvaccinated are both comfortable coming to school.”
Of 46 staff who responded, 56.5% marked 4 or 5 as their comfort level with optional masks while 23.9% marked 1 or 2. All MHS teachers and staff are vaccinated.
Prusator was not surprised with the student survey that saw 78.3% mark 4 or 5 as their comfort level for optional masks.
Board members asked about instruction for quarantined students, quarantine requirements for students with symptoms, lunch options, the school’s ability to provide social distancing and insurance coverage in regards to COVID-19 spread and mitigations
Prusator said quarantine instruction will be remote through cameras in the classrooms just like last school year, students with symptoms will need to quarantine for 14 days, there will be multiple locations for lunch again this school year and the high school can meet the 3 feet distance in most classes but will struggle to reach 6 feet because of 100 students returning to in-person learning this year.
Prusator said he spoke to the district’s insurance company and legal counsel about liability.
“If our policy is we’re going to make masks optional, then our language needs to be consistent with what the CDC said that we strongly recommend masks because then we’re following the guidelines from above,” Prusator said. “If the CDC and IDPH say students must wear masks and we make the decision they’re optional, then we’re not going to have that coverage.”
The board will make decisions on masks and other mitigations at an Aug. 11 meeting.
“There are all kinds of moving parts going on,” said Board President Jim Lauer. “It’s kind of like a pitcher trying to deceive the hitter. The hitter has to focus on the ball. That’s what we have to do. We have to focus on safety and well being of the students and staff and their families. If we can maintain the highest level of education while doing that then we’re focusing on the ball.”