School districts in the area continue to struggle with COVID related absences.
It’s prompted Rock Creek Schools to implement thresholds for mandatory masking, which three of the district’s four school buildings currently meet. Superintendent Kevin Logan tells KMAN about how the school board came to its decision this week.
Day-to-day operations have been a challenge, according to Logan, with several teachers out either positive with COVID or as a close contact. It’s also put an added burden on the substitute teacher pool. Logan says on top of that is confusion among staff about how long a person must be out before they can return to school, citing the CDC’s move recently from 10 to 5 day quarantines.
Logan added masking may not be 100 percent effective at preventing the spread but according to Kansas Education Commissioner Dr. Randy Watson, schools that require masks are seeing 10 times fewer cases than those that don’t require them. Logan says the primary reason is to keep schools operational due to a high number of staff absences.
St. George Elementary, Rock Creek High School and Rock Creek Middle School will mandate masks in buildings starting Tuesday, Jan. 18.
