JENKS — Citing declining COVID-19 case numbers, Jenks Public Schools’ Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to suspend the district’s mask requirement effective immediately.
“The discussion when we implemented this was that it was temporary,” board President Terry Keeling said. “It feels like the numbers are in a spot it could be lifted now. We never wanted this to be permanent, and we made that loud and clear.
“My personal feeling is that this is a fluid situation. While we all have opinions about masks, if we need to implement them again, we can.”
As of Friday, the district had 32 reported cases of COVID-19 among its students and staff. By comparison, when the school board approved Jenks’ mask requirement in mid-September, the district had 131 reported cases.
In order to be in compliance with a temporary injunction from the Oklahoma County District Court, Jenks’ mask requirement included opt-out language on religious or medical grounds or for strongly held personal beliefs.
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Superintendent Stacey Butterfield advised the board that almost one-quarter of the district’s employees and 19% of its students had formally opted out of the mask requirement.
However, Butterfield said her administration’s observations around the district’s campuses indicated that even more students were not wearing masks than the almost 2,400 who had formally opted out.
“Suspending sends the proper message for where we are today,” board member Ron Barber said, “although it might be more symbolic more than anything else.”
Students, staff and visitors will still have the option to wear a mask on district property if they so choose, and masks will still be available to any employee, student or visitor upon request.
After the meeting, Keeling reiterated that the board reserves the right to reinstate the district’s mask requirement if conditions warrant. If the mask requirement is brought back, any opt-out forms previously submitted would still be considered valid.
“There was a large population of our parents who did not want a mask mandate, and we always went into this with the intention that this was temporary,” Keeling said. “We felt that now was a good time to respond to that, and that’s what we chose to do with the numbers being low.”
Dr. Andi Shane will be the first to admit there are still too many unknowns about how COVID-19 manifests itself inside a child but she's certain cases in the younger population are trending in the wrong direction. Hospitals across the United States are reporting caring for more and more children in their intensive care units as the delta variant continues to spread.
