Students and employees in Christian County Public Schools will be encouraged to wear face masks in classrooms and on buses when classes resume on Aug. 11, but masks won’t be required, said Superintendent Chris Bentzel. The district’s COVID-19 protocols could change if local data indicate the need for additional “mitigation strategies,” he added.
The district announced its coronavirus policies for the upcoming school year as health officials nationwide express growing concerns about a surge in COVID-19 cases, including the highly contagious Delta variant.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new COVID-19 recommendation for “fully vaccinated people to wear a mask in public indoor settings” if they live in areas of substantial or high transmission. As of Wednesday, the CDC listed Christian County as an area of “high transmission” of the virus, as are most of the counties in Kentucky.
Gov. Andy Beshear said on Wednesday that all state employees, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, will be required to wear masks while working indoors. Earlier in the week, he recommended that local school districts require masks for unvaccinated students and adults inside schools. However, the governor stopped short of issuing a mask mandate for schools, and Bentzel said the local district will let parents and guardians decide if students must wear a mask.
“Christian County Public Schools values in-person learning,” Bentzel said in a news release. “The health, well-being and safety of students and staff are priorities within our district. Those priorities have to be met in order to have an effective learning environment.”
At the conclusion of the last school year, approximately 50% of CCPS staff had been vaccinated. The district is in the process of updating its vaccination numbers, spokesman John Rittenhouse said Wednesday.
Christian County has the second lowest vaccination rate for all residents at approximately 23%. The rate for residents 18 and older is 30% and for those 65 and older it is 57%.
Rittenhouse said the district may set up a student vaccination clinic if the need arises, but no clinics are currently scheduled. (Children 12 and older are approved for the two-shot Pfizer vaccine, and the CDC recommends it. A vaccine is not currently approved for children younger than 12.)
“Most pharmacies are now working on a walk-in basis and there does not seem to be a shortage of vaccine,” he said.
In most areas of the country with low vaccination rates, the problem isn’t availability of vaccine. Rather, people are electing to not get the vaccine, or they don’t make it a priority and have delayed getting it.
Along with Bentzel’s announcement about the mask policy, the school district’s health director, Megan Kidd, issued the following guidelines:
- A CCPS support plan will be in place for parents who want their student(s) to wear a mask all day.
- Personal protective equipment will be available in each school for staff and students, if needed.
- When able, social distancing of 3-6 feet will be utilized for mitigation purposes.
- CCPS will continue to monitor COVID data on a local and state level.
- CCPS will continue a working relationship with the Christian County Health Department, Jennie Stuart Medical Center and local pediatricians to assess the ever changing status of COVID.
- The Virtual Learning Academy will remain an option for students in grades 3 through 12.
- CCPS will continue to promote the COVID vaccine to help increase the proportion of students (12 years of age or older), teachers, staff, and family members who are vaccinated; Continue partnership with WildHealth and the health department to offer vaccine clinics to those who want to be vaccinated.
- CCPS will implement a strong contingency plan if and when COVID transmission shows that more layers of mitigation strategies need to be executed.
- Visitors are currently allowed in CCPS locations; however, this may change if and when a contingency plan is put into place.
The Christian County Board of Education will hear an update on the COVID-19 plan at its Thursday, Aug. 5, meeting.
The district has a capacity for up to 600 students in the Virtual Learning Academy. Rittenhouse said 300 students are currently enrolled.
Sports teams will follow the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s Ready-to-Play protocol, which requires contact tracing at practices so the district can determine which students need to quarantine if someone tests positive for the virus, said Rittenhouse.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
