Jackson strongly recommends masks but will not mandate for upcoming school year

Jackson School District administrators will not require students or staff to wear face masks or coverings this upcoming school year.

The district will instead strongly recommend students and staff to wear masks, Scott Smith, the district’s new superintendent, said at a board meeting Tuesday night.

“In reviewing everything and trying to think of students’ safety as well as our community’s, we felt like the next step was to strongly recommend masks while in buildings, but we are not requiring them at this time,” Smith said.

The Southeast Missourian previously reported the Cape Girardeau School District will also not require masks.

Both districts’ decisions contradict the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation to wear masks or face coverings indoors regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the Missouri Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics echoed the CDC’s advisement anyone older than 2, regardless of vaccination status, should be masked indoors, including in school settings.

Smith said he did not know what percentage of the district’s students have been vaccinated. He added the district is currently compiling a survey to gauge how much of its staff are vaccinated.

When asked whether the district had any attendance benchmark that would cause it to reevaluate its masking policy, Merideth Pobst, Jackson’s director of communications, said district officials will closely monitor absences and the reasons for them.

“We’re going to continue to monitor our attendance as we do regularly,” Pobst said. “If we start to see an extensive amount of absences, then we would obviously review the data and see what the absences were related to.”

This district will not require vaccinations, either. Though, a staff or student’s vaccination status may come into play with the district’s quarantine protocols.

If a student is exposed to a positive case, they would not need to quarantine if they have been vaccinated or were masked at the time of exposure.

“We would still recommend they monitor their symptoms,” Pobst said.

The district will offer a virtual learning option called Ignite Online for students who live with high medical needs or at-risk family members. It’s also open to families who prefer not to send their children to in-person school.

So far, only nine of the district’s 5,600 students have opted for the virtual option.