By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph school board members have scrapped the building-by-building COVID policy and have adopted a new policy to fight the pandemic.
The St. Joseph School Board has voted 6-to-1 for the change that excludes students and staff from school only if they test positive or display COVID-19 symptoms.
Superintendent Doug Van Zyl says the change boils down to keeping the sick from spreading their illness.
“So, if people are sick regardless of if it’s COVID or something else, we still want people to stay home; don’t bring it to school,” Van Zyl tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “If you’re not feeling well, keep it away from everybody else. That’s the biggest thing and we’ll still do the mitigation strategies that we can.”
The district will continue to have those in schools keep a safe social distance when possible. School buildings and classrooms will be cleaned regularly. Vaccinations will be encouraged. Masks will be optional.
The past policy required masks be worn in school buildings in which 7% of the students and staff had either tested positive for COVID-19 or had been sent home due to exposure to an infected person.
Van Zyl doesn’t see the new policy more difficult to carry out than the old policy.
“Well, I don’t know that there’s difficulty or easy in anything related to COVID,” Van Zyl says. “I think that our challenge has been having to exclude, or quarantine is a word that a lot of people use, students that were possibly exposed to somebody where now they’re not having to be excluded or quarantined.”
Students who have been exposed to an infected person can continue to come to class unless they test positive or display symptoms.
Van Zyl insists the change wasn’t prompted by a threat from the Missouri Attorney General to take legal action against the district mask mandate. Van Zyl says the letter from Attorney General Eric Schmitt didn’t play any role in the change in policy.
“Because the Attorney General’s letter doesn’t have any sway over us,” according to Van Zyl. “It didn’t include school districts. As we visited with our legal counsel and talked to them, it doesn’t apply to us, it applies more to your health departments and other situations. It doesn’t apply to school districts.”
Van Zyl says COVID isn’t going away, so the school board is going to have to figure out ways to deal with it. He says the district hopes people can be flexible and patient with the district.
“Our goal and desire is to have kids in school and have them there safely and to stay healthy.”