Face masks will likely be expected for Ky. students when schools reopen in the fall

If Kentucky public school students can’t stay six feet apart, they will likely be expected to wear face masks at school to curb the COVID-19 pandemic when buildings reopen in the fall, Kentucky Education Commissioner Kevin Brown said Monday during a virtual meeting with superintendents.

“That is going to be the public health expectation,” Brown said.

Gov. Andy Beshear is set on Wednesday to announce public school health recommendations for 2020-2021, Kentucky Department of Education officials said.

Brown said while state officials know that students won’t be able to wear a mask every minute of every school day, he hopes that district officials will give it their best effort. Teachers will also be expected to wear masks.

“The mask may be the one thing we can do,” said Kentucky Department of Public Health Deputy Commissioner Connie White.

White said COVID-19 is not going away without a vaccination, which health officials don’t expect soon.

Todd Allen, interim general counsel for the Kentucky Department of Education, said schools will need a clear policy or procedure for how to respond when a student refuses to wear a mask, a state news release said.

“We certainly wouldn’t physically force a mask on any student,” Allen said, adding that teachers and staff will need to know how to respond from their local districts.

Woodford County Superintendent Scott Hawkins said at least with his district, it will be “next to impossible to do 6 feet apart in a classroom” and that districts “will be shocked at the number of people who won’t send their kids back if they have to wear a mask for six or seven hours a day,” a news release said.

“To think that we can have school with every classroom at six feet apart is just not feasible,” he said. “I don’t think I’m alone in that. I just don’t see that being a realistic possibility.”

Franklin County Superintendent Mark Kopp said his district is considering a phased-in approach. Phase one would be 100 percent online during the first nine-weeks of school. One day per week during this phase, students could voluntarily come to school to get assistance with instruction.

Kopp said those days would be spaced to limit the number of students coming into the school buildings. “After fall break, the district would enter phase two, which would be a hybrid approach. In a hybrid model, students would have both in-person and online instruction,” a news release said.

Meanwhile, serving meals in the classroom, in the gymnasium, and even the hallway is just the beginning of changes in food service that kids might see when Kentucky schools reopen in the fall of 2019-2020, Kentucky Department of Education officials said Monday in guidance released about school meals.

Some schools might also offer “Grab and Go” meals in the cafeteria or hallways. In addition to physical distancing, students could be assigned seats at meal times to “enable contact tracing to occur if an individual receives a positive diagnosis,” the guidance document said.

Each school district with the help of public health officials and future direction from Gov. Beshear, will make specific decisions on which rooms, including the classroom and gym, that students should eat in.

The state guidance on school meals released Monday also said that chairs should face in the same direction during meals, that deep cleaning would be required of food service areas, and that extra time would be given for students to wash their hands. Precautions, such as social distancing and temperature taking, will be used by food service workers.

To curb the spread of COVID-19 cases, Kentucky schools stopped in-person learning in March.

Last week, Kentucky state senate leaders asked Interim Education Commissioner Brown to accelerate giving superintendents direction on how and when to reopen schools in the fall.

Most districts in the state, including Fayette, had not specifically said by Monday afternoon if and when in-person learning will begin or whether they might continue learning at home to some extent.

Between March 16 and May 27, while Fayette schools shut down in-person learning and students learned from home, 365,939 meals were served to children and youth, the school district said in a news release Monday.

This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 5:00 PM.