GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay Area Public School District board member Andrew Becker says the district has erred on the side of caution when it comes to masking staff and students.
A stance most parents listening in on last night’s school board meeting shared.
“We are the only district in the county… that are masks mandatory,” said speaker Martin Webber. “There’s no reason for it.”
Remaining a contentious issue with parents on both sides of the aisle, the district established threshold requirements in the past to discontinue mandating masks.
They’d become optional if Brown County’s 7-day rolling case rate is at or below 100 per 100,000 over 7 straight days.
The Department of Health Services shows Brown County in critically high case activity, a categorization combining Brown county’s critically high burden of 1,228.6 per 100,000 people and their trajectory showing shrinking in cases.
But compared to the district’s stats…
“As I look at our numbers, and specifically in our district, you know, there’s seven active cases… an incredibly low number,” said Eric Vanden Heuvel. “Same thing with students, 23 of the approximately 19,000 students… I feel like we are there.”
The discussion didn’t happen without the input from experts.
Dr. Robert Mead from Bellin Health also sitting in on the board meeting.
“It’s harder to get rid of something and then start it up again,” he said. “Our recommendation would be not to do that right away.”
Also part of the discussion, what happens if case activity jumps up?
“To schedule a meeting to have a discussion if we start to see a change in the data, I think, is appropriate,” offered Vanden Heuvel. “Rather than try to pick a metric that says ‘ope, this triggers that’.
Ultimately the board voted in unison to make masking optional.
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