RPS superintendent recommends universal mask wearing as delta variant spreads
Rochester Public Schools interim Superintendent Kent Pekel is recommending everyone wear a mask to start the 2021-22 school year.
Pekel made the recommendation Friday in a three-page memo sent to members of the Rochester School Board. The board is scheduled to continue discussion on the topic at its next meeting on August 17.
Pekel said the updated policy reflects current Covid-19 transmission rates, which have spiked in recent weeks due to the spread of the delta variant.
If approved, the district would require “all students older than two years of age as well as all staff and all other adults to wear face coverings inside all RPS facilities and on all forms of transportation,” the memo says. The recommendation is a reversal from a policy adopted last month by the School Board limiting the mask mandate to students under the age of 12.
Moving forward, Pekel is also asking the board’s Policy Committee to consider delegating future decision-making on masks to his office.
“Removing face mask requirements from Board policy and instead making them a matter of administrative procedure could enable Rochester Public Schools to adopt a more responsive approach to mask requirements as the spread and impact of the Delta variant evolve over the course of the 2021-2022 school year,” Pekel wrote.
In addition to the mask requirement, Pekel outlined a number of other updates to the district’s Safe and Open Schools plan, including:
The development of an “anonymous and optional process through which staff, volunteers and community providers will be asked to report and verify their vaccine status.” Additionally, Pekel said the district will develop a similar process for parents and guardians regarding the vaccine status of the their children. The information collected, Pekel noted, would allow the district to adjust Covid-related policies “based upon actual vaccination rates in RPS schools rather than rates across Olmsted County as a whole.”
A partnership with Olmsted County to operate vaccination clinics at district sites “whenever doing so is likely to increase vaccination rates among students, staff, and community members.”
Structuring learning environments to allow for three feet or more of social distancing.
Continuing to “offer a full range of extracurricular activities as long as all participants in those activities as well as coaches and advisors adhere to requirements for wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and other relevant provisions” of the plan.
At next week’s meeting, Pekel said, the district will announce ways for community members to provide feedback on the plan. That meeting can be viewed in-person or on YouTube beginning at 5:30 p.m.
