Fox Chapel Area School Board makes masks optional under certain covid conditions

Masks will be optional for everyone inside Fox Chapel Area School District buildings after five consecutive days of low to moderate covid case levels.

This marks a major change to the district’s health and safety plan approved by school board members Monday night.

The vote was 8-0 with school director Kimberly Andrews absent.

The updated plan was posted to the district’s website, fcasd.edu.

Masks remain mandatory “when there is substantial transmission or high transmission of covid-19 in Allegheny County as defined by the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” the safety plan read.

Cases in Allegheny County have spiked in recent weeks as the omicron variant continues to spread throughout the country.

The positivity rate in the county was reported at 26% earlier this month.

That means Fox Chapel families should not expect to be able to take off the mask in schools any time soon.

“We recognize that this landscape is constantly shifting,” Superintendent Mary Catherine Reljac said. “It is always difficult to predict the future, and we fully expect that things will change in the future and that our needs may change. Our goal remains to do our best to ensure continuity of education for our students. That means not only having our schools open for in-person instruction, but having our students in our schools for that in-person instruction.”

The district is dealing with its own rise in cases as about 220 covid cases were reported from winter break through Monday.

A breakdown of those cases by school building and other cases since August is available on the district website’s “covid-19 resources” tab.

Reljac said the vast majority of cases were due to exposure outside of schools, and county health officials are notified of every case.

She said the county health department has not recommended any Fox Chapel Area schools to go to remote learning.

Reljac commended health officials for their cooperation with Fox Chapel Area and other school districts.

She noted there are weekly discussions with experts and superintendents, as well as other communications with her team members and the health department.

“As the cases escalate in the region, it is expected for the cases to escalate in our schools,” Reljac said. “However, we are continuing to work collaboratively in ways to try and put all of our mitigation strategies in place.”

Board president Marybeth Dadd noted the health and safety plan has the flexibility to be adjusted even to specific building needs.

Reljac said student health and safety will continue to be the highest priority for teachers and staff.

“I think all of us as educators and staff members here in the district are very focused on trying to do the best for our students,” she said. “To try and take care of each other and take care of our children and do our best to keep school as normal as we possibly can make it for students.

Only two audience members spoke out about the health and safety plan during the meeting.

Parent Michael Aziz suggested the district keep masks mandated while parent Emily Glick said it was a good move by the board to approve a data-driven change to the mask mandate.