Freeport Area School District tweaks covid-19 rules in the wake of recent events

The Freeport Area School Board is adjusting its health and safety plan regarding covid-19 once again in order to match up with recent developments.

The board approved the revisions unanimously Thursday, including removing the requirement students wear masks in school.

Board President Adam Toncini said that is being done to comply with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling against Gov. Tom Wolfe’s mask mandate for schools.

The latest policy revision on masks, which Superintendent Ian Magness said has been in effect since Monday, states students and visitors are “recommended, but not required” to wear facial coverings in school and at school functions.

It’s the same policy the board enacted in August for the start of school but then was changed to comply with the governor’s mandate.

“The board knows, as well as the staff and students, that we’ll do whatever we’re asked to do to keep the students and staff safe,” Magness said.

Optional masking is not the only change to the plan.

The district also is adjusting its rules for anyone who has contracted covid-19 but doesn’t show symptoms.

Magness and Toncini said students, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who are determined to have had close contact with an infected person will not be required to quarantine as long as they remain asymptomatic. That goes for both in-school and at-school functions, such as extracurricular activities and athletic contests.

However, people who have had close contact that show symptoms are to quarantine immediately. They are to seek testing and follow the advice of their primary care physician.

The quarantine period remains 10 days, Magness said.

He said that plan revision only applies to in-school contacts, however.

Magness and Toncini said the plan continues to require all staff and students, whether asymptomatic or symptomatic, who have close contact to someone who is infected that occurs in households “immediately quarantine for the full identified time frame.”

One other adjustment to the plan is that anyone visiting the nurse’s suite in school will be required to wear a mask.

The board set all the changes to go into effect Monday, Dec. 20 .

Magness said the changes were “not the recommendation of the district’s Health and Safety Committee.”

However, when asked what the committee’s recommendation was, Magness only would say, “Our goal is to keep the schools open for the kids.”

He said the committee did have a request in regard to the plan revisions being adopted.

“If the board was going to do that, they wait until Jan. 17. So that would put us far enough out of the holidays,” Magness said.

Health officials around the country are expecting covid-19 cases to rise because of holiday gatherings.