Havre Public Schools stay with optional masks

The Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees voted unanimously to keep HPS's current policy of optional masks for students and staff for the upcoming school year in a chaotic Tuesday evening meeting filled with confusion, anger and mask-related misinformation.

The vote to continue the policy came at the recommendation of HPS Superintendent Craig Mueller who thanked students, staff, parents, and community members for replying to a recent survey regarding mask-wearing policy, and the board for fielding questions from the public.

75 percent of respondents said they wanted masks to be optional while 23 percent voted in favor of following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and making them a requirement for students, faculty staff and visitors.

Mueller said masks are a useful tool in the fight to mitigate the spread and damage of COVID-19, one of many used in the past year and a half, including increased hand washing, surface sanitizing, and social distancing.

"No one strategy is sufficient to prevent transmission, and multiple interventions should be used concurrently to reduce the spread of disease," he said quoting the CDC.

He said he thinks the schools system did a good job overall adapting to COVID-19, and he highly encouraged students and staff to keep wearing masks to protect themselves and each other.

Mueller said the COVID-19 situation in the U.S. is again becoming dangerous with a new surge in cases locally and country-wide, driven by the delta variant.

The delta variant is at least twice as contagious at the original strain of COVID-19, and is affecting younger people more severely as well, and the surge is threatening to once again overwhelm regional medical systems in parts of the U.S., something medical experts say will continue until vaccine coverage is high enough.

"We continue to trust in infectious disease experts, epidemiologists, and others in the medical profession to provide recommendations and guidance," Mueller said.

He said he and his team, in conjunction with the Hill County Health Department, have kept track of the rate of transmission, localized positivity rates, the anticipated rise in positive case numbers, which will surely the impact the educational environment, and how they will handle quarantined students if a face covering requirement is not in place.

"These, again, are arduous tasks for our educators, who our students deserve to see delivering face-to-face instruction," he said.

Mueller stressed the importance of keeping school open five days a week and said the more transmission decreases the more likely that they will never have to go back to remote learning, which is difficult for staff and students.

He said to maintain this in-person learning the school has to continue relying on a science-based approach to its policies.

"It is critical to use science and data to guide decisions about the pandemic and school COVID-19 plans. All school COVID-19 policies should consider the following key principles and remember that COVID-19 policies are intended to mitigate, not eliminate, risk. Because school transmission reflects but does not drive community transmission, it is vitally important that communities take all necessary measures to limit the community spread of SARS-CoV-2 to ensure schools can remain open and safe for all students," he said, quoting the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Mueller's recommended policy did not change the schools' approach to COVID-19, keeping masks optional but highly recommended, while allowing the administrative team the authority to shift back to remote learning in the event of a significant outbreak, decisions that can be reviewed by the board at an emergency boar meeting following the decision.

His recommendation said the factors that will be considered in the decision to temporarily move back to remote learning would include the impact of the virus in positive cases and quarantines on students, impact of the virus in positive cases and quarantines on staff, unusual or unpredicted outbreaks that directly impact the educational environment, community transmission, CDC metrics, and consultation with local health experts including but not limited to those at Northern Montana Hospital, Bullhook Community Health Center and the Hill County Health Department.

He said some of these factors have numbers attached to them, but the administrative team would need to take them all into account, so it's difficult to create an absolute benchmark that would necessitate a shift back to remote learning.

After finishing his recommendation, in response to a question from Trustee Tim Scheele, Mueller said the nature of the pandemic necessitates that administrators be able to make quick decisions in the case of an emergency without the need to call a board meeting which may take time they don't have.

He said having to wait for a board meeting with a quorum may result in sending infected students back to school, further spreading the virus, not allowing health professionals to do their jobs and trace the spread.

He said this policy reflects that of other school districts in the state.

After Mueller's opening statement and recommendation Trustee Jacob Ingram proposed an amendment to strip all language from the recommendation outside of the first sentence which specifies that masks are optional and add language that would state that transfers back in remote learning would be solely contingent upon a majority vote from the board.

The amendment was an effort to give control of school-by-school transitions to remote learning exclusively to the board, not to the executive team as voted on in October.

It was pointed out later in the meeting that because that authority had already been given to those teams in the policy approved last year that stripping that language from Mueller's recommendation wouldn't actually change anything, but conversation around the amendment proceeded around the assumption that the amendment would transfer that authority.

The motion was voted down 2-6, but not before 16 people from the largest audience at any school board meeting this year, expressed support for Ingram's amendment.

Only two spoke against the amendment including Havre Public Schools Education Foundation Board Chair Kyle Leeds, who said the process for closure is already in place and given the situation there is not a good reason to change it now.

Hill County Board of Health Member Erica McKeon-Hanson expressed similar sentiments, saying she has been on the ground level of fighting the spread of COVID-19 and she knows Mueller and his administrative team will make informed decisions in the interest of students and staff.

After the amendment failed community members expressed varying degrees of anger toward board members and occasionally Mueller.

Former School Board Chair Shad Huston said the performance of the board was a disgrace, and the board members should justify their votes to the attendees.

"I am absolutely disgusted," he said.

He was followed by more than ten community members passionately condemning the board for their actions, accusations of negligence, ignoring the communities wishes, as well as running the meeting with inconsistent and confusing rules.

Another former board member, Scott Adams, said the trustees are sworn to represent the values, beliefs and priorities of the community and they are failing.

"You guys need to look at the code of ethics," he said.

Miranda Hencz, a regular attendee to COVID-19-related school board meetings, said the people giving Mueller "secret" medical and public health advice need to come to the public and provide evidence that masks work.

"We need scientific proof that masks work period," she said. "No more because 'I said so.'"

Every major medical and public health institution in the U.S. and worldwide attests to effectiveness of masks as a mitigation tool for the spread of COVID-19 such as the CDC, the Mayo Clinic, American Medical Association, World Health Organization, Rochester Clinic, Johns Hopkins University medical school, Harvard Medical School and Stanford University Medical School

Mueller's public statement regarding his recommendation included citations of two studies supporting the efficacy of masks.

The meeting included a number of pieces of misinformation regarding masks and the delta variant, all of which have been refuted by the larger scientific community.

Tamara Gibson, another community member said if board members are unable to do their jobs, meet in a timely fashion and make decisions they should leave.

"If you're not up for it please, please resign," she said.

After public comments Trustee Garrit Ophus said his experience as an information technology professional and someone who has an 8-to-5 job on top of being a school board member is the reason he voted the way he did.

"If I have an issue that is threatening my network we have to make the decision then and there to pull the plug, take down the network and keep this computer from infecting everything, but hold on, we've got to call in eight other people who don't work here to come in and we don't know what they're doing at any given time," Ophus said.

He said some board members who are frequently out of cell service because of their job as well as, two who work in health care and may not be able to come immediately.

He said he's been around incident command in fire and policing through family members and it makes sense to have people able to make quick decisions, decisions he said the board will ultimately examine in the end anyway once they are able to meet.

"If (firefighters) had to wait for the elected members of the fire department board to come together and decide whether or not to put water on the fire, or what truck to send to the fire, you're reacting too late, that house is going to be gone," he said.

With regards to masks themselves he said he supports people wearing them because they are effective mitigation tools and he doesn't want to see the delta variant overwhelm the community.

Board Vice Chair Theresa Miller expressed similar sentiments regarding the administrative team's authority.

Board Chair Curtis Smeby said he supports Mueller's recommendation, but believes it should go further and a mask mandate would be sensible given the situation.

"I'm concerned for the health and well-being of our students and I think it's the right thing to do," he said.

He said cases of the delta variant are going up and masks may help avoid the very thing everyone at the meeting least wants to happen, an outbreak resulting in school closure or return to distanced learning.

Smeby said he honestly doesn't understand why wearing a mask is such a big deal.

"Lordy, are we serious that we can't put on a mask?," he asked rhetorically.

The crowd responded with shouts of "yes" and "no masks."

When asked after the meeting if the community response was what he expected, Mueller said yes.