For the first time in over 10 months, students in the Warren County R-III School District will not be required to wear masks on campus. Beginning last week, new COVID-19 protocol concerning face coverings has taken affect for those attending summer school.

“We have lifted our mandate, so students are no longer required to wear a mask, but we are still encouraging them to do so to prevent the spread of the virus,” said R-III Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith.

The change came as a result of a meeting with the Warren County Commission and Health Department, wherein it was decided the district could lift the mandate. Prior to this, R-III had been awaiting the guidance of one of three organizations — the CDC, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the health department — before removing its mask requirement. 

“We were looking for direction from either the local, state or federal level,” said Klinginsmith. “The board had a meeting and decided we are encouraging kids to wear masks but will not be enforcing a mandate.”

Klinginsmith emphasizes that the lifted mandate is for summer school and camps only and that a separate decision will be made concerning the 2021-22 school year. For the time being, it will be up to the family’s discretion whether the child wears a mask to school.

“When you look at it, a student can go to Busch Stadium and sit in full capacity without a mask, so we’re leaving it up to the parents right now,” said Klinginsmith. “As a district, we won’t be enforcing the wearing of masks during summer.”

This was first major change in about seven months, since R-III went to modified quarantine rules in November. While it eases the requirement on masks, it may potentially result in more students being kept home as a result of close contact.

“The quarantine part can be confusing with this,” said Klinginsmith. “At this time, unless the student is vaccinated, if they are in close contact with a positive case, regardless of if they’re wearing a mask or not, they would still have to quarantine. That’s really just the rules that have been established by the department of health and human services at the state level.”

With 1,000 students — around one-third of the total enrollment — attending summer school, this could prove to be a helpful gauge for the district when it comes to assessing how to handle the upcoming school year.

“We’re always going to be monitoring this and seeing if we need to put masks back on,” said Klinginsmith. “Some of the information we gain from summer school will help derive decisions for school year.”

Last year the district incurred 123 positive cases among staff and students, resulting in 1,356 students quarantined. It is suspected that many of those were the result of contact outside of campus.

“What our experience from the school year has been is that we’ve really not seen a lot of the spread of the virus at school,” said Klinginsmith. “Most of the cases came from household contacts and not at school. That very well could be because they were wearing masks.”