DANVILLE — All students, staff and visitors of Danville Elementary School must wear a mask inside starting Monday, principal Tara Bond announced during a Facebook live Friday.
“Do you want to return to remote learning?” Bond asked viewers before announcing the mask policy change.
Bond said her main objective was to prevent the elementary students from having to learn remotely this year.
“We cannot continue here in our elementary building with our current practices,” Bond said. “We currently have 50 students out with COVID or COVID quarantine because they have been exposed.”
The district’s pre-kindergarten through sixth grade building has 14% of students absent due to COVID-19, superintendent Jason Snively wrote in an email to Knox Pages Friday.
The total absence rate, including absences because of other illnesses, at the PK-6 level is 23%, Snively wrote.
Almost a quarter of the building’s students are absent.
Comparatively, the seventh through 12th grade building currently has 4% of the students absent due to COVID-19, and the total absence rate in the 7-12 building is 10%, Snively wrote.
The district had recorded a total of six positive COVID-19 cases as of Friday — with one positive staff case and five student cases, all at the elementary level, Snively wrote. The school year began Aug. 16.
Danville Elementary will also return Monday to students eating lunch in classrooms rather than the cafeteria.
“We have had to put students in quarantine because of lunch, because the seats are so close together and the nature of eating and saliva,” Bond said during the Facebook Live.
Bond also asked during the Facebook Live for parents to have their students bring two masks to school everyday, in case one gets dirty, dropped or lost.
“We will continue to have masks in the office like we did last school year should someone forget,” Bond said.
Students do not have to wear a mask at recess, unless they are within sixth feet of one another, Bond said.
Danville Elementary will not be offering remote learning.
“We are only gathering and sending work home to those who have COVID or are quarantined,” Bond said.
Bond said her goal is to keep students in-person in school.
“I know this is not what you wanted to hear as a parent,” Bond said. “This is not what I wanted to share as a principal, but it’s what I’m willing to do for our students to keep them here.”
Snively echoed this sentiment Friday, expressing his support for the decision.
“To be honest, the need to mask is to prevent the large number of quarantines and the negative effects that it causes on the students social/emotional well-being and academic success by being removed from the building, as we have to follow the ODH quarantine guidelines,” Snively wrote.
“As long as all students wear a mask, we greatly reduce the quarantine risk. The priority is to keep students in the building.”
Within Knox County, as of Friday, East Knox Local Schools is the only district with an indoor mask mandate. The district began mandating mask-wearing indoors on the fourth day of the school year due to a rise in cases and quarantines among students and staff.
Wiggin Street Elementary School also has a mask mandate, required through a Gambier village ordinance, but masks are optional in the rest of Mount Vernon City Schools.
Wearing masks indoors is optional for all other K-12 school buildings within Knox County.
