Whitefish schools to keep mask requirement for K-6

Following a lengthy discussion by the Whitefish School Board last week, trustees voted unanimously to retain its requirement that students and staff in grades K-6 wear masks while indoors.

The board decided to keep the same mitigation strategies and procedures in place related to Covid-19 that it first approved in August ahead of the start of the school year. The board said it will revisit the issue again at its December meeting.

When presenting the administration’s recommendation to continue with all the mitigation strategies currently in place, Whitefish Superintendent Dave Means explained that Covid-19 case numbers in Flathead Valley are still rising and some internal data indicators are in the “red” critical level, indicating that all mitigation efforts are still needed at this time. One of those internal indicators is the seven-day average positivity rate, which is at 24% for Whitefish School District. Anything above 10% is considered in the high range.

“Our No. 1 priority is to work together to keep our schools open for in-person learning, we keep that in mind as we look at all the information tonight,” Means said at the meeting. “We’re considering information from a variety of sources in different stakeholder groups.”

Means explained that the total number of positive cases in the Whitefish School District is a slightly lower percentage than other districts in the Valley, but also expressed that it's difficult to pinpoint whether one mitigation strategy is working better than another with the available data that schools collect.

“We do have fewer cases in our school district, but I don’t think you can say that is due to one mitigation approach or another,” Means told the board. “There are way too many variables to consider that could impact positive cases and there’s a lot of different mitigation strategies utilized by ourselves and other schools.”

Whitefish School District has had a total of 39 student confirmed cases and five staff positive cases this school year as of Oct. 10. Last week’s active cases total for the district was 10 students — four at Muldown, five at the middle school and one at Whitefish High.

Some of Whitefish’s layered mitigation strategies other than the mask requirement include asking students and staff to stay home if feeling ill, physical distancing, good hand hygiene, daily cleaning, high-quality ventilation and optional vaccinations for staff and students 12 years of age and older, among others.

One of the main reasons why the district administration and the school board say they continue to support masks required for grades kindergarten through sixth is because a Covid-19 vaccine is not yet available for kids in those grade levels.

During the meeting, public comments were again split into differing opinions. Several stated they were parents who felt it should be a personal choice to put a mask on their child or not. Others wanted masks required for all the grade levels including seventh through 12th and some stated that they were concerned about the rising positive case numbers locally and thanked the board and school administration for their mitigation efforts.