Dr. Nichols to proposed new matrix for masking in schools at Nov. 4 BOE meeting
Dr. Nichols
MADISON – With new COVID cases at their lowest point in months throughout the Madison area, Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols will try again to transition the school district from being mask mandated to optional.
“During the past several weeks, we have been blessed to see a decline in positive cases of COVID in our district, community, and state,” Nichols said. “Last week, we experienced nine positive cases out of 13,600 students and staff in the district. This number fell from close to 100 in early September.”
According to Nichols, the statewide school numbers last week showed 1,000 cases out of 800,000 students and staff, which is a decline from approximately 8,500 in early September.
Nichols said he plans to recommend to the MCS Board of Education a matrix regarding masking of students and staff, something he did last month but was voted down by the school board. Not only has the number of COVID cases decreased significantly since then, other school districts in north Alabama have decided to move away from mask mandates — except in Madison County.
Decatur City Schools will end its mask mandate Nov. 1, making masks optional. Athens City Schools ended its mask mandate Oct. 18, while Morgan County ended theirs on Sept. 16. Limestone County did not implement a mask mandate this school year. Madison County Schools and Huntsville City Schools still require students and staff to wear masks.
Details of the new matrix proposal for Madison City Schools will be made public on Friday, Nichols said. He will then take it before the school board on Nov. 4. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. at the MCS central office on Celtic Drive.
According to the Alabama Department of Public Health on Tuesday, Madison County’s rate of infection is 6.3%. There were eight new cases in Madison County reported Monday. That is a far cry from the 480 new cases reported on Aug. 24, the peak of the most recent COVID surge. There have been 249 new positive COVID tests out of 3,960 over the past seven days.
Madison Hospital has reported single digit COVID patients this week, for the first time in months. There were only seven patients with COVID at the hospital on Tuesday, which had experienced numbers near 70 a couple of months ago. Within the current cases, three are in ICU with two on ventilators.
Even as local school districts end mask mandates, the Alabama Department of Public Health is urging K-12 schools to leave universal masking in place to avoid COVID-19 outbreaks.
Assistant State Health Officer Karen Landers, a pediatrician, last week said children should wear masks because of the high number of pediatric cases and the difficulty of maintaining social distance within schools.
“We’re talking about an indoor setting. We’re talking about kids being close together in a congregate setting for a period of time,” Landers said. “Masks work. We need to keep this layer in place until such time as we have lower levels of community transmission, lower rates of percent positivity, and higher levels of vaccination.”
The issue has left parents of Madison students deeply divided. Some applaud Landers’ assertions that masks must stay, especially through the holidays. Others ask, if we do not stop mandating masks in schools when numbers are so low — then when?
