Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham told the Maries R-2 Board of Education on March 30 that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has changed COVID-19 restrictions to reduce social distancing for six feet to four feet.

“We have reduced our space that kids have to be apart to three-foot. So as long as they are three feet away or more, they don’t have to wear a mask unless they are in the hallway or in a line,” Basham said. “We have reduced the amount of time, especially at the middle school, that they have to wear a mask, because they don’t have to be as far apart.”

She was especially referring to students at the Bland Middle School who have less space to be socially distanced six feet apart.

“Our quarantine numbers before we had the mask mandate were much higher,” Basham told the board. “There were 211 quarantined students in the first semester due to in-school contact. The second semester there are three from in-school contact. It has definitely kept kids in school, which is what we wanted it to do.”

According to the Mariesr2.org website that was last updated on March 29, 2021, two staff members were currently out with positive COVID-19 cases and 15 students were in quarantine due to outside contact with the virus.