Crawfordsville Community School Corp. officials signaled the district-wide mask policy will remain in place amid the ongoing rise in coronavirus cases.
Reflecting the nationwide increase in new infections, positive student cases and quarantines are at their highest levels since August, Superintendent Dr. Scott Bowling told the school board at its monthly meeting on Thursday.
Over the past week, 26 students have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Bowling said. The number of quarantined students stood at 129, which, while higher than in recent weeks, is below August’s levels of more than 300 students.
“I do think that what we’re doing with masking is certainly helping on the quarantines right now,” Bowling said.
Everyone is required to wear masks in school buildings while Montgomery County is in the orange or red advisory status on the state’s COVID-19 tracking map, indicating medium to very high community spread. The county moved to red from orange this week for the first time since August.
Children ages 5-17 represent a combined 14.5% of positive COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County over the past 30 days, according to the state tracking data.
Statewide over the same period, that age group represents a combined 12.8% of positive cases, data show.
Hoosier schools reported more than 1,419 new student COVID-19 cases in a single day last week, part of a total of 4,321 newly reported cases included in the state’s latest school dashboard update. That’s the highest daily total since early September.
Ahead of Thanksgiving, cases had started to creep back up after weeks of decline.
Despite the rise in cases, board president Steve McLaughlin said he’s fielded calls urging the district to drop the mask requirement. McLaughlin expressed his support for maintaining the policy.
The board adopted the policy in September in an effort to limit student quarantines. The move came after Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order that said in schools with mask requirements, students don’t have to quarantine as long as they don’t develop symptoms and masks were properly worn.
Previously, masks were optional except in schools with higher positivity rates.
In other business, the board:
• Authorized year-end money transfers. The district received approval to move up to $1 million in education fund dollars to the rainy day fund, which has a lower balance after the payment of teacher’s stipends. Approval was also given to transfer up to $600,000 from rainy day to the operations fund, helping meet the target balance for operations. Bowling said the figures are conservative amounts and the actual transfers will be lower.
• Approved advertising a notice seeking bids for an air controls project at Crawfordsville High School. The changes will allow greater control of airflow in the building, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Rex Ryker said.
• Approved the high school baseball program’s annual spring break trip to Unionville, Tennessee. The trip will include a visit to Stones River National Battlefield, the site of a Civil War battle.
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Information from Indiana Public Media was used in this report.
