MANSFIELD — Students are masking up at St. Peter’s School — at least for now.
The private Catholic school is basing its COVID-19 protocols on the level of community transmission, as reported by the CDC.
Under the school’s “Restart Smart” plan, face coverings are required indoors when the level of community transmission is “high” and become optional if case counts drop to “substantial,” “moderate” or “low.”
The plan also allows for a school mask requirement during times of substantial spread if the campus has a high case rate. Students and staff will observe three feet of social distancing until the transmission rate drops to “low.”
To have a high transmission rate, a county must have either 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days or a minimum of 10 percent positive COVID-19 tests during the past seven days.
As of Friday, Richland County had a seven-day case rate of 295.49 per 100,000 people and a 14.86 percent positive COVID-19 test rate.
Head of School Laurie McKeon said the plan was developed in conjunction with the school’s advisory board and administrators. She said teachers were supportive of the decision.
“We’ve been dialoguing about it all summer,” she said. “Our staff is terrific. Not a single minute of pushback.”
McKeon said there were several factors that went into the plan. The low vaccination rate in Richland County was one of the reasons, as was the current age restrictions for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
There is currently no COVID-19 vaccine authorized for use in children under 12 years old, so about 40 percent of the student population isn’t even eligible.
“We started back on Wednesday and it’s been wonderful being able to send my kids to a place where I feel they are safe and they’re doing the best they can to protect them,” said Cassandra Parente, a parent of two young students and interim director of the school’s advisory board.
“Knowing that my kids are not vaccinated — they’re not eligible for vaccines — their safety was really important to me given what I know about the virus.”
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 vaccination rate in Richland County is 34.54 percent as of Aug. 19.
“We’ve got unvaccinated kids going back to unvaccinated homes. And that’s everybody’s personal choice, but we’ve got a real responsibility and obligation to keep our school community safe,” McKeon said.
Wearing masks while community transmission rates are high also decreases the chance that students will have to go into quarantine.
“We had done a lot of research in terms of the Delta variant and looked at schools that were opening in other parts of the country and could see that the spread was significant when kids went to school,” Parente said.
“Our objective is keeping kids in school, we know that’s where they learned best.”
Under the quarantine guidelines released by the Ohio Department of Health, students who have a confirmed positive exposure to COVID-19 can continue attending school if they were consistently and correctly wearing a face mask and physical distancing was maintained.
Eliminating the risk of mass quarantines also lowers the chance that classes would have to temporarily go remote due to a lack of available staff.
“At St. Peter’s, it’s really important to us to keep our kids in-person, in school,” McKeon said. “While there were heroic efforts on remote learning last year, remote learning is tough on everybody.
“We don’t want to do that unless we’re mandated by somebody.”
McKeon acknowledged that masks can be hard on kids too, but said if it keeps students in the classroom, it’s worth it.
She also said she understands why other schools might make a different choice. Although the CDC recommends that all staff and students wear a mask indoors in K-12 settings, there is no state or federal mandate. This led most area schools to implement policies that recommend, but do not require, mask wearing.
“I tip my hat to everybody in the school business, particularly these last couple years,” she said. “Under COVID and as polarizing as masks and everything else can be, I understand the decisions that everybody’s making.”
The school’s faith focus is another reason for the policy.
“We just feel that for St. Pete’s, particularly given we’re a Catholic environment, we have an articulated mission to protect the most vulnerable,” she said. “We’re asked everyday to put others before ourselves. It’s important to us that we live that out.”
Parente agreed.
“It’s a Catholic school and we want to provide a Catholic school environment where we support our most vulnerable population,” she said.
McKeon said she’s gotten both positive and negative feedback from families on the decision, but that those who disapproved of the policy were respectful when voicing complaints.
“While I’ve had some negative responses, everyone has been really respectful. I’ve been really heartened by the reasonable, rational dialogue we’ve had with families that want to discuss our policy further.”
