BELLE — The Maries R-2 School District will implement a mask mandate at the return to school Jan. 5 for grades 5-12, after a 4-3 vote by the board of education on Dec. 22 failed to postpone the edict.

After hearing from parents and the Board President Joey Butler II about their misgivings to implement a mask mandate within the school district, Director Tom Kinsey made a motion to postpone the mask mandate until the next board meeting, when more data could be collected. The motion was seconded by Board Vice President Dawn Hicks in order to discuss the topic.

“Part of my decision is — with the children, and reading the guidelines and discipline, if we go by it strictly, there is gonna be kids that their A+ Program could be in jeopardy because of the discipline issues,” Kinsey said. “That is the main thing, is that I don’t want kids who are normally — everybody’s got their own morals on what they believe is right and wrong, and that is where I’m at.”

Kinsey said the masks will cause students to touch their faces more. They walk up to a door, adjust their mask and grab a door handle, is that door handle going to be wiped off every time a student touches it? Before the next kid grabs it and adjusts their mask? He also used “toilet flushers” as an example.

“You can’t stop it,” Kinsey said.

Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham said there is sanitizer by each entrance and exit.

Butler added that he had read in a CDC note that many people were re-wearing masks or wearing dirty masks, which is worse than not wearing a mask at all.

“We had talked about providing them, but you know there will be kids who wear them home, then pull the mask out of their backpack and put it back on during their return to school the next day,” Butler said. “I think at minimum, see what our numbers do and continue to research it.”

Basham said after the November meeting, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) changed their guidelines from a 14-day quarantine to a 10-day quarantine and recommended that those in quarantine could take and receive a negative test on the fifth day and return on the seventh day.

“But our health departments don’t agree about what that looks like on a county level,” Basham said. “Gasconade County is doing the positive test on the fifth day, they can come back on the seventh. Osage and Phelps are doing, you can come back on the 10th day as long as you don’t have symptoms, but the positive or negative test doesn’t affect their decision.”

Basham reminded the board that when they started to implement the mask mandate, it was to reduce quarantines for the students.

Director Kenda Sanders said she already feels like they postponed the mandate by making it start at the first of the year, at the return from Christmas break after passing it in November.

“The primary reason I voted for the mandate was to keep the students in class so that we did not have to go through that 14-day quarantine in taking them out,” Sanders said. “Unless we are going to remove ourselves from imposing the quarantine, which I don’t think is a wise decision —,” Sanders began.

“Legally we don’t have to do the quarantine,” Kinsey interrupted.

“Legally you have liability,” Sanders continued. “Which is the reason why I voted for it.”

Butler pointed out that even the health departments disagree on what is right and wrong. He said he thinks the health departments are doing their best, but they still don’t know either.

“That is just it,” said Director Amy Kiso. “You can be asymptomatic and still spread it. So this whole deal about not having symptoms, that to me does not make any sense.”

Kiso said she still agrees with what they did in November and what Sanders said about keeping students in-seat, avoiding quarantine for a whole bunch of them if they are wearing a mask.

Butler asked about how often that is going to happen.

“Is it three or four classes that they are going to have to wear a mask in?” he asked.

Basham said it depends on the class and classroom and if there is enough room to social distance. Butler said lunch will also be an issue.

“There are still chances for a quarantine, the mask is not a guarantee that there is not going to be a quarantine. In the elementary, we didn’t even put one on them,” Butler said.

Sanders said the mandate won’t eliminate the number of quarantines but it will decrease them. Director Brent Stratman asked about the kids who don’t get tested and still go to school.

“There is kids sick, they went and got tested and didn’t test positive, so they still go to school,” Stratman said.

Basham said the school nurse will send the students home if they have symptoms of COVID-19.

“You don’t hear anything about — nobody is getting hay fever anymore, nobody is getting sinus infection anymore, nobody is getting regular flu anymore, it’s just COVID,” Kinsey said. “I don’t get it and I’m not on board with it at all. There is no proof and the burden of proof is ‘where did you catch it at or if you caught it from whoever. How are you going to prove you caught this from a certain person at a certain time?’”

Kinsey said they are in new territory and need to step back and see where it goes before they put a burden on the community and kids.

“At this meeting, we are supposed to decide what the disciplinary actions are,” Butler said. “Postponing it would at least allow —.”

Hicks interrupted and said it would benefit them to see where the numbers are after Christmas because experts were predicting a huge spike in cases after the holidays. Basham said they predicted a huge spike after Thanksgiving too and it was reasonable, maybe six kids from the high school were sick.

Butler added Phelps Maries County Health Director Patrick Stites said that Maries County looked good. Part of that is because they have a lot of ability to mitigate things before it becomes bad.

“So we understand there is opposition in the community to the mask mandate,” Sanders said. “Have we gotten any support for the mandate?”

Basham said she has heard more positive responses than negative ones. Kiso addressed Kinsey’s concern about disciplinary actions affecting students’ A+, saying that even if a student is suspended, it doesn’t always happen because there is a board hearing. The school district doesn’t have a record of ever eliminating a student’s A+ status for discipline.

Basham said the recommendation for their attorney is to keep the quarantine guidelines in place, even if they don’t implement the mask mandate because neither federal or state governments have given schools liability protections.

Bland Middle School Principal Denise Baldwin asked if she could give the board an example from an educator's point-of-view.

“I see everybody’s concerns, but as a building leader trying to mitigate all of these quarantines, it’s not fun. I’m worried about their education, for them to go home and run on their own, gather their work, catch them up and make up the tests they’ve done or not done while they are still learning. To me it is the worst thing to try to maintain students' grades and learning gaps with the children in quarantine,” Baldwin said. “At least with the masks, they get to stay in school. I do understand why people don’t want to, but from a virtual point-of-view, our virtual stuff is not there and we don’t have the resources that other districts have. My biggest concern is if you do away with the mask mandate and have to throw kids into quarantine — it barely works.”

Board Director Garret Bialzcyk said he noticed many scholarship essays mentioned how hard not going to school was last spring and trying to motivate during quarantine.

“Keep that in mind too, because those kids gather in quarantine, they get a packet, but they are not going to remember it, they are rushing through it at the end because they are distracted. Mom and dad are working and they are watching two siblings,” Bialczyk said.

Hicks said if they looked at out-of-school contact numbers compared to in-school-contact numbers, there are 69 in the middle school that were quarantined for out-of-school contact and there was a total of 73 in-school-contacts for the high school and 74 out-of-school contacts. I didn’t count the 45 from athletics. That could be out-of-school contact from another team or the kids with COVID came to practice but it is unclear where that student contracted it.

“When you are looking at contact out-of-school, how are you going to stop that by putting a mask mandate in school?” Hicks asked.

Basham said they are only protecting students from spreading it while they are in school —that’s the 119 students who were quarantined from being in contact with a positive case at school.

Sanders said until they change the quarantine guidelines, she will support the mask mandate because keeping the kids in class is the best place for them. “They will put this in place, but you need to give them some direction,” Basham insisted.

Kinsey said what the district is currently doing is sufficient without the mandate.

“The numbers show it,” Kinsey continued. “I understand not having to send them home, but I think we are a little overboard on that to begin with. If they go home, get a test and it is negative, right back to school.”

Hicks asked if the district has encouraged masks at all so far.

“We encouraged strongly and it was very limited during the month we did not mandate it,” Basham said. “There were not many that wore a mask.”

The board voted to postpone the mandate until the January meeting, and the motion failed 4-3 with Bialzcyk, Sanders, Stratman and Kiso for and Butler, Kinsey and Hicks against.