Government : In spite of recommendation of IA Dept. of Public Health Mask Mandate Continues

The Iowa Department of Public Health issued a statement concerning the requirement to wear masks at school. The CDC representing the United States as a whole has issued guidelines for vaccinated adults while the Iowa Department of Public Health has changed their recommendations for Iowa. 

The current COVID numbers in Region 6 of which Benton County is a part of, are at an all time low. With 2 cases in the ICU, and only 22 hospitalized. The following counties make up Region 6: Benton, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Clayton, Delaware, Dubuque, Fayette, Grundy, Howard, Jones, Linn, Winneshiek.

In Benton County, our number of cases is at 0% according to the state website.

Upon receiving new guidelines from the Iowa Department of Health, the VSCSD board members called a special meeting to discuss the new state guidelines. In part, the guidelines state:

"We are concurrently revising our COVID-19 guidance for school and child care ]tings, including quarantine guidance, to recommend that while COVID-19 positive and symptomatic children should be excluded, exposed children should no longer be required to stay home, regardless of mask usage. Moreover, when there is a positive case, parents should be given information around exposure to COVID-19 in order to make their own informed decisions regarding risk. To that end, while we acknowledge that some parents may want their child to continue to wear a cloth face covering for reasons that make sense for their family or that child's individual health condition, we urge schools and child care settings to provide parents and students with the option to make their own decision about mask usage.

Superintendent Koeppen stated that throughout the school year the school has followed the state's recommendations for mask-wearing. Mr. Koeppen also stated that the school hasn't had a case of COVID since the beginning of April and that the staff of the VS District are currently 85% vaccinated.

Most agreed that they want to get rid of wearing the masks, but don't want to risk the health of the children. 

The board unanimously agreed that the policy should be that children are required to put the masks on from 8-3:30 p.m. through May 28th. After-school events would now be masks appreciated but not required.