PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — After two years of wearing masks due to COVID-19, SAD 1 will transition immediately to optional masking.
During a special school board meeting on Feb. 28 to discuss the district’s masking policy, Superintendent Ben Greenlaw reviewed all the changes to the COVID standard operating procedure since January. He recommended transitioning to optional masking immediately, which the board approved in an 11-to-5 vote.
Tho school is no longer required to contact trace or to quarantine close contacts. The district will continue with pool testing, and may consider making masks mandatory again if the number of cases climb enough to move it into outbreak status. This happens if 15 percent of students and staff have active cases.
Students will no longer be required to wear masks on the bus unless returning from an active case, and physical distancing will continue.
During public participation, six community members addressed the board.
Keith Wilcox thanked SAD 1 employees for all the work they have done up to this point, and for handling the uncharted waters of the pandemic with grace. He said the response to the pandemic has done more harm to children than the pandemic itself, calling for optional masking to be put into place.
“Masking in schools was meant to be temporary,” Wilcox said “Although the SOP has been modified several times, it has always given schools a reason not to make masks optional by forcing them to follow different guidelines if they chose to. I understand the choices and decisions made, but that’s not the case anymore.”
Theo Fienburg and his mother Danielle said that education should be accessible to individuals with disabilities, citing that a school must take action to protect higher risk individuals, including asking other students to mask for the sake of protecting others.
Liberty Herweh, a freshman at Presque Isle High School who is deaf, spoke in favor of making masks optional. While she does have implants that can help her with hearing, she relies a lot on reading lips, something she has not been able to do in school for two years, making things more challenging.
Other comments did not focus on masking but on other aspects of the pandemic.
Bill Merchant spoke on behalf of the Aroostook County chapter of Maine Stands Up. He said chapter lawyer Vaughn Jenkins was examining testimony that Anthony Fauci, in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health and Eagle Health Alliance, knew of the dangers of the COVID vaccines yet pushed them through anyway.
Nancy Watson mentioned the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, of which Maine Center for Disease Control Director Nirav Shah is president. Watson claimed Shah and his wife have used aspects of the pandemic for their own financial gain.
Lisa Roderick recommended that the board watch part of, if not all, of a Jan. 24 Washington, D.C., roundtable meeting with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, online. The presentation is a roundtable discussion regarding COVID and testimonies from individuals who have been treating patients.
The next regular school board meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16, in the high school cafeteria.
