By Heather Graves
Editor
GREEN BAY – For the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Green Bay School District will have a districtwide optional masking policy beginning Monday, Feb. 28.
After a lengthy discussion, the school board voted unanimously at its Monday, Feb. 14, meeting to transition to optional masking at the end of the month.
Green Bay is the last school district in Brown County to have a universal masking mandate, with many surrounding districts shedding the masks after the holiday break or shortly thereafter.
Board Member Andrew Becker said he isn’t sorry Green Bay is the last district to move to optional masks, but it was time for the conversation to happen.
“I think we have erred perhaps more on the side of caution than others, and I have no problem with that,” Becker said. “I absolutely take COVID seriously, and everyone knows that, who has paid attention over the last two years… I am so over threats and people yelling at me and stuff. I have decided all the way through, based on the math, and I think it is safe to make masks optional pretty soon, like very soon… I think things have changed materially and substantially in this equation here.”
It was a sentiment shared by Trustee Brenda Warren.
“The Brown County cases per 100,000 residents, the seven-day rolling average is half of what it was a week ago,” Warren said, “and I’m expecting that number to continue to go down. I don’t want to say ‘No masks, tomorrow.’ I think there needs to be time to communicate and decide what the guidelines are going to be. I’m comfortable with having masks be optional, but not this week.”
Becker made an original motion to move to optional masks Monday, Feb. 21.
However, after hearing from Dr. Robert Mead from Bellin Health, an amendment by Board Vice President Laura McCoy extended the switch to Monday, Feb. 28.
“It’s harder to get rid of something and then start it up again,” Mead said. “Our recommendation would be not to do that right away.”
From the beginning, McCoy said the board has been tasked with balancing the safety of the district’s students and staff with a “pragmatic need to keep our kids in school.”
“That path has been complicated and challenging and emotionally draining for everybody involved, and I just want to say that and let people know we acknowledge that this has been really hard on families…,” she said. “I just want to be very clear here. It is my duty as a school board member to care about the safety of approximately 20,000 students and more than 3,500 staff members. That is what I was elected to do, and I need to do that even when it’s hard, and even when we are all exhausted with it, even in a pandemic. And I am always going to take that very, very seriously.”
Though she voted in favor of the Feb. 28 date, Board Member Nancy Welch questioned the need for additional action, because the district was so close to hitting the metric already in place – which would have automatically triggered ending the mandate when the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 positive cases in Brown County is at or below 100 per 100,000 population, for seven consecutive days.
As of Wednesday, Feb. 16 that number was at 165.6, which is less than half it was the previous week, and has been falling since reaching a peak of more than 2,000 in mid-January.
“I really wish we would just stay with our regular motion, because I thought it was all set, and we were getting there…,” Welch said. “It seems like we are shooting ourselves in the foot here.”
McCoy said she didn’t even know why the board was having the conversation, “because we had such a solid motion already in place.”
“Since this has been forced, and we don’t really know what the next week is going to be, (we’ll take a vote),” she said. “But I liked our original motion. I thought it had good parameters in it already.”
Becker said he preferred Feb. 21, but would vote in favor of Feb. 28, because it’s at least a definite date of change.
“I think we are going to be hovering in the low 100s for a very long time,” Becker said. “I hope I’m wrong, but I think we will. It is harder to get lower than that.”
Ultimately, the board unanimously voted in favor of the Feb. 28 change.
If case activity in the county exceeds 400 cases per 100,000 population for any seven straight day period, a board meeting will be called automatically to revisit optional masking.
The district’s COVID dashboard as of Wednesday, Feb. 16, showed 284 students and 15 staff members were in quarantine or isolation, a significant decrease from this time last month.
When the change takes effect, masks will continue to be required on buses.