Mask mandate lifted at Colby schools

With under a month of school left, wearing masks at Colby’s public school is no longer mandatory.

Since last Friday, masks have been “recommended but not required” for students at Colby Middle and Senior High, and kids in elementary can come to school without one as long as they have a waiver submitted by their parents.

Students are still required to wear masks in certain classrooms if there are specific health concerns for staff members, and they must also continue wearing them on the bus.

Superintendent Steve Kolden made the decision last Thursday, and on Monday, he estimated that only one in five students in grades sixth through 12 were still wearing masks. A total of 234 students at the elementary school, which has an enrollment of 445, had received parental waivers as of Tuesday.

The lifting of the mask mandate, which had been in place since the start of the 2020-2021 school year, comes after two juniors submitted a petition to Kolden earlier this month.

In response, Kolden said he had the two students eliminate any duplicate signatures and those from eighth-graders, which brought the total number of names down from 267 to 126. He also invited representatives from the sophomore and senior classes to a discussion with the two juniors on Monday, May 3.

“We had a great conversation. Every body listened. Everybody was respectful,” he said. “Those four students couldn’t come to a conclusion on what we want to do with masks.”

Ultimately, Kolden made the decision after meeting with high school seniors last Wednesday in the theater for an informal discussion about the mask issue.

Kolden said the juniors who presented the petition suggested that he speak directly to seniors because they have “more to lose” with graduation coming up in a couple weeks.

Before opening the conversation up to students, Kolden reminded everyone to stay polite.

“It’s emotional and people are very passionate in their beliefs,” he said. “Given that, we should respect the ability of people to have different opinions. It’s part of life.”

Senior Brooklyn Filtzkowski urged her classmates to “go into the conversation with an open mind, no matter what your beliefs are,” and to listen to all sides of the argument.

“Don’t get upset with the vote or other people’s opinions,” she said. “That’s not what today’s for.”

Filtzkowski also encouraged her fellow seniors to think about all the upcoming events they don’t want to miss out on because of possible quarantines.

One student, however, questioned the point of wearing a mask when students can still get quarantined if they are found to have been in close contact with someone who had COVID.

Kolden noted that the county health department, not the school district, makes decisions on who needs to be quarantined based on “close contacts.”

One senior seemed to speak for many of her classmates when she called for making the masks voluntary.

“We’re going to keep going back and forth saying ‘This is dumb’ or ‘It’s necessary,’ but the people who want to wear it can wear it and the people don’t do not have to,” she said.

Kolden also had seniors write down their opinions anonymously, either for or against the mask mandate, on sheets of paper.

On Monday, Kolden said the comments were “strongly supportive” of making masks optional. He also said he was impressed with the students’ maturity level when discussing a sensitive topic.

One concern for seniors is what would happen if a COVID outbreak occurred right before the ceremony on May 28, creating the need for quarantines.

Kolden said several rain dates have been scheduled if graduation needs to be postponed due to weather, but the decision to push it back because of quarantines would have to be based on numbers.

“If you have three to four who are out in quarantine, we’re going to go ahead with graduation,” he told the seniors. “If you have 60, we’re going to move it. The hard part is when those numbers get somewhere in between.”

In the event that a student is unable to attend graduation due to a quarantine, Kolden said the district will make arrangements with that student and their family to pick up their diploma and get pictures taken.

The number of quarantines has plummeted since earlier in the school year. As of Monday, 11 students out of a total 960 in the district were at home due to close contacts with COVID cases, including five at the middle school and six at the high school.

By comparison, last fall, there were as many as 350 students and 27 staff members out on quarantine at one time, Kolden noted.

Case numbers are “absolutely going down” even though compliance with the district’s mask mandate is not always great, Kolden noted. He said this one of the reasons he decided to make masks optional at this point.

Administrators have also decided to loosen some of the rules set for the graduation ceremony. Seniors will be allowed to sit together this year after they have escorted their families to assigned seating on the bleachers. Last year, they had to stay with their families and other invited guests.

Each senior will be allowed to have up to six guests in the stands (up from four last year), and if others want to watch the ceremony from behind the fences, Kolden said he’s not going to stop them.

“I’m not going to encourage a large gathering, but I’m not kick people out,” he said.

Since July of 2020, when the school board first gave him the authority to decide whether or not require the wearing of masks, Kolden said he’s been in a “nowin situation.”

“No matter what I decide, somebody’s going to be mad. Mostly, as I look at this, is what’s important to you,” he told the seniors last week.

The freedom for students to not wear masks likely came as good news to several parents who spent months petitioning the school board for the ability to exempt their students from the requirement.

However, at least one parent was not happy with how the decision was made.

Amanda Haupt, who spoke in favor of the mask mandate at board meetings, said the public should have been allowed to speak about the issue before the policy was changed.

Haupt said it was upsetting that high school students were able to provide input to the superintendent, even though parents were not allowed to bring the topic up at the last school board meeting.

“I don’t understand why minors were allowed to provide input on the welfare of my child,” she said, noting that she has concerns about the lack of social distancing at the elementary school.

Public health officials still support mask-wearing, she noted, and parents should have been given more time to prepare for the mandate to be lifted.

“We had less than 24 hours notice,” she said. “That seemed like a hasty decision.”