Beginning Monday, the mandate that the 1,450 students attending Brownstown Central Community School Corp. schools have to wear masks because of the county’s red COVID-19 status will no longer be in place.

It will still be highly recommended, however, that students don masks while at school.

That policy change was made Thursday night during a board of school trustees meeting at the administration building.

In September 2021, the board amended the corporation’s reopening plan to require students to wear masks as long as the county is in the red advisory level, while Seymour Community School Corp.’s board of school trustees amended its plan to require masks for both the orange and red levels.

The county has been at the red level since early this year, and students at both corporations have been required to wear masks. The number of COVID-19 infections peaked in late January. On Jan. 20, there were 185 cases of COVID-19, compared to 55 on Wednesday, a 70% decline.

Shortly after Brownstown Superintendent Tim Taylor gave his monthly COVID-19 update Thursday night, Trustee Brian Wheeler made a motion to amend the current plan from requiring masks to highly recommending students wear masks in all buildings. That motion, seconded by Trustee Clayton Beard, was approved 7-0.

Taylor’s report showed there were two positive cases of COVID-19 at the elementary school, none at the middle school and one at the high school and no positive cases among staff. There were nine elementary school students and five middle school students quarantined because of close contact with someone with a COVID-19 infection.

Taylor said after the decision that he would get the change out to students and parents as fast as possible and would make the change effective Monday.

“Student health is very important to us,” he said. “This board has taken this very seriously and monitored it closely.”

Board President Scott Shade said the board’s job is very simple.

“That’s to keep kids in school, keep schools open per the rules provided by the state and health officials, and we’ve done that,” he said. “Now, the rules have changed in a huge way. They went from 14 days for a quarantine to five days, which is huge as far as keeping kids in school. So as things change, our job is to monitor those changes and do what’s best for students. The bottom line is kids need to be in school.”

The topic of wearing masks at school also was brought up at the Seymour board meeting Tuesday night.

Trustee Jeff Joray made a motion to immediately end the mask mandate and adopt the policy used by Crown Point Community School Corp. in northern Indiana. Max Klosterman seconded the motion, and the mask policy was discussed.

Joray said it was his opinion that Seymour schools need to adopt the same policy as Crown Point, where masks will be optional in all school buildings and facilities.

“If the positive number of cases in any building rises above 2% of the building’s population, including students and staff, everyone in that building will be required to wear masks during the school day for 14 days,” he said. “Individuals who test positive for COVID must quarantine, and close contacts will be identified using a 3-foot measurement.”

Joray said most people would agree that COVID is probably not going anywhere.

“Most of us would agree that it has become politicized to where it has divided people into groups,” he said. “The bottom line is that there is a lot of competing medical evidence that the cloth mask and the way kids wear them do not work.”

Joray said if the board decided to vote this down because of safety issues, he hopes they at least have the resolve to then require all staff and kids to wear properly fitted N95 masks that do provide some protection and the board should wear them, too.

Superintendent Brandon Harpe said the Indiana State Department of Health recently issued new guidance that allows schools to end contract tracing programs and individual notification of close contacts for those schools that have mask mandates in place. There are no such changes for schools that do not have mask mandates enforced.

Board Vice President Nancy Franke asked how the optional mask policy would be interpreted by the state and what impact it would have.

“One of the reasons we put the mask mandate in place was to keep as many students as possible in the classroom,” Franke said. “If we change our policy and not have a mask mandate, then we will have to go back to contact tracing again, which will not only add a burden to our school nurses but also our administrative staff and office staff, who have spent too many hours taking care of that.”

The school board voted 6-1 to stay with the current COVID mitigation strategy, which follows state guidance. Joray cast the lone nay vote.

When the county advisory level goes back to yellow, masks would become optional again. The board had received a statement recommending masking, signed by 31 local health care providers, when they passed the initial policy last fall.