Some Montana schools saw COVID-19 outbreaks during the first few weeks of school. Yellowstone Public Radio’s Olivia Weitz spoke with Darren Strauch, the Superintendent of Monforton School in Bozeman, after the school decided to reverse its mask policy.
Olivia Weitz: Monforton School started on August 26th. It’s a school in west Bozeman, a K-8 with around 700 students. I just want to ask how the first few weeks of classes have been going.
Darren Strauch: For sure, you know, thanks, Olivia, for chatting with me today too. It’s been an interesting start to the year. We've had a couple of stumbles as with a lot of schools across the state and across the nation. We're dealing with the impacts of COVID-19, still.
Within the first couple of days, we had our first case that affected one of our second-grade classrooms. And then by the second week of school, we saw a number of students and a couple of staff members that tested positive in our middle school. And so our sixth and seventh grade transitioned to online learning. We're just trying to navigate through all of that.
We did start the year out with optional masking. And then just about nine days ago now the board of trustees held an emergency meeting on the 7th of September and transitioned back to mandatory face coverings for students and visitors and staff.
Olivia: What led you to then suggest to the board to change the mask policy to mask mandatory at the school?
Darren: We're trying to understand, again, recommendations from the governor's office, the state superintendent's office, the Department of Public Health and Human Services at the state level, but also, you know, understanding what we're hearing from our county health department and from the CDC and the American Association of Pediatrics, and hit that happy medium as much as we can.
What the CDC is telling us is that students that are wearing face coverings, if they're in close contact, that close contact decreases from six feet to three feet. And so instead of having to potentially ask entire classes of students to transition to remote learning, we might only have three or four students that are affected instead and there's less impact on staff members as well.
Olivia: What was the sort of reception among parents and among teachers when that suggestion was made and then later passed by the board?
Darren: Our community specifically is about 50/50 on it. So, certainly there are some folks that were ecstatic about it, happy about it. Other folks were super frustrated with it. And there’s strong feelings on both sides, certainly throughout our country right now. We're just trying to do the best we can to make sure that we're staying open five days a week.
Olivia: In hindsight, do you think that the school year would have gone smoother at the beginning had there been a mandatory mask policy heading into the school year?
Darren: Olivia, all of our crystal balls have been real cloudy for the last 18, 19, 20 months since the pandemic started; and so now we're just doing the best we can to make sure that we've got kids that are educated and receiving high-quality education. So, it's tough for us to second guess ourselves as we move forward. We're just trying to do what's right by our families and our students. And again, the bottom line, the goal, is to keep our kids in the classroom five days a week.
Olivia: Sure. Yeah. And so it sounds like you're releasing a survey to parents to continue gathering feedback on the masking element. Do you see this conversation around masks as a topic that you’re going to continue discussing throughout the school year?
Darren: It was on our agenda a number of times last year. The board continued to look at what's going on in the community, and we're going to continue to do so. We're going to continue to listen to our families the best that we can. We're going to continue to look at metrics within the county and within the state, and frankly, within the nation.
Olivia: How will you evaluate it throughout the school year?
Darren: That's been part of the issue, I guess, as far as the development of metrics, is that we're just trying to understand our community. So, we're paying attention to what we've got as community spread within, you know, within Gallatin County, within the city of Bozeman itself, as well as within the school district and have been tasked by the school board to develop more cut and dry, clear-cut metrics, as we move forward. And so that's something that the administrative team will be continuing to work on identifying over the course of the next month.
Olivia: Thanks so much Darren, I appreciate it.
Darren: Thanks a lot Olivia, take care.
