RIVER FALLS – A much anticipated Jan. 25 vote by the River Falls School Board on whether it would continue to require students and staff to wear masks in school buildings was tabled upon Superintendent Jamie Benson’s recommendation. This means masks are still required in River Falls School District buildings.

Board member Bob Casey made the motion to table the vote, even though he’d advocated for it in December. Things have changed, he said.

“I was one of those in December advocating to make a decision in January,” Casey said. “Omicron was fairly new and cases were decreasing. That whole thing has changed. It’s changed completely. It’s not even, it doesn’t make sense to change now, it just doesn’t.”

As of the Jan. 25 school board meeting, Benson said the district (students and staff) was seeing about 30 COVID cases per day. There had been momentum in December to pivot to optional masking, but that was before Omicron hit.

On Dec. 21, Benson had listed the total confirmed and probable cases reported in RFSD over the last seven days per 100,000 population to be 401.8 cases, or 99 total in the school district boundaries (which contains roughly 24,000 people).

On Jan. 24, that total was four times higher at 1,491 (over the last seven days per 100,000 population), or 367 total in the district. However, after a peak of 527 confirmed cases on Jan. 13 in the RFSD boundaries, that number has been decreasing, which Benson called “a ray of hope.”

He made it clear that the district isn’t “fear-mongering” by reporting confirmed case numbers. The goal is to provide the facts.

“It doesn’t mean that with these kind of numbers screaming as loudly and high as they are, that doesn’t mean that people are on their deathbeds,” Benson said. “We’re not fear-mongering by showing the numbers.”

The CDC still recommends masking, distancing, hand washing, vaccination, staying home when sick and isolating when positive, Benson said.

Upon his recommendation to table the mask vote, he gave the following reasons why it was prudent.

1. Current Omicron transmission rates do no warrant any immediate change.

2. In January, more students and staff had confirmed positive cases than all of the 2020-21 school year. From Sept. 1, 2021 to Jan. 24, 2022, the district has seen 841 confirmed COVID cases.

3. Local physicians suggest we keep mask policy in place for another month.

4. November through December, we were gaining momentum to change to an optional mask policy. However, now would be very challenging to explain, rationalize or justify.

5. There are some indicators that Omicron may have reached a peak and will now begin to slowly improve in the coming weeks.

6. Considering all we’ve endured, we can keep the masks on a few more weeks.

“What we really need to do is buy ourselves a little time, that the current transmission rates don’t warrant an immediate change,” Benson said. “I’m hopeful as many of you are that we can eventually pivot to a mask optional approach.”

Board Treasurer Todd Schultz, who was among the unanimous votes to table the vote (board member Lindsey Schultz was absent), said he hopes people realize the board is taking everyone’s concerns into consideration when making these decisions, even if the vote doesn’t turn out the way someone wants it to. Board President Stacy Johnson-Myers agreed.

“I don’t think that anybody in the board … thinks that masks are the perfect layer of mitigation,” she said. “We know that they’re not. But we also know that we have classrooms that are just teetering on the edge of needing to be closed in order to prevent further spread or indeed to have to close the whole school. So even though we know that masks aren’t a perfect layer, even if they save some infections, which science would tell us that they do, it could be just that balance for us of keeping kids in school, which the school board set as our highest priority.”

Benson said while the district doesn’t have a crystal ball to tell them the dates masks will be made optional, families will be given ample warning.

“We may not follow the matrix exactly to a tee,” Benson said. “We don’t want to tinker with the matrix and make it a bait and switch.”

Before the board made the decision to table the masking vote, several parents spoke up in favor of going mask optional. The board restricted comments to two minutes per person.

“We have continually moved the goalposts on what the end of masking actually looks like, yet we can pack bars, restaurants, sporting events, craft fairs and so many other things in this community, but our children continue to be told that they must suffer the mental consequences during the school day to keep terrified and probably triple-vaccinated adults safe,” said one mother who only gave her name as Stacy.

She went on to accuse the board and Pierce County Public Health Office AZ Snyder of not understanding science and turning masking into a religion.

Parent Kristin Miller was on the opposite side of the spectrum, thanking the board for the layered mitigation efforts in schools.

“I’m extremely concerned that the issue of masking is even being brought up at this point in the pandemic when throughout our district many classrooms are needing to move to distance learning,” Miller said. “We are extending the semester due to absenteeism at our high school and we are offered only virtual conferences for this winter semester. The use of face masks is one of the most basic ways we can protect one another and demonstrate love of neighbor.”

Personnel

The board approved the following personnel changes unanimously: •Hiring Luke Chaffee as a full-time social studies teacher at River Falls High School (replacing Alyson Niehans. Chaffee has 15 years of experience (in Hudson). He earned his bachelor’s degree from UW-River Falls and his master’s degree from UW-Eau Claire.

•Increased employment of Becky Briese, English teacher at River Falls High School, from 0.846 FTE to 1.0 FTE for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year (partial replacement for Ellen Puff).

•Hiring Starla Dixen as a full-time long-term substitute fourth grade teacher at Westside Elementary effective Jan. 3 through April 1 (for Stacia Johnson).

•Hiring Elizabeth Bruch-Andersen as 0.675 FTE long-term substitute English Language Arts teacher at River Falls High School effective Jan. 17 through approximately June 7, 2022 (replaces Ellen Puff).

•Hiring short-term, on-call substitute teachers Donald Haack and Christina Miller The board also approved revised job descriptions for transportation assistant supervisor, bus driver and mechanic.

The board green lighted the recommendation to change the daily substitute teacher pay rate from $160 per day to $200 per day. This matches neighboring Hudson School District, which shares many substitutes with River Falls.

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