EXCELSIOR SPRINGS – With the COVID-19 Delta variant impacting children more than the original virus, the school board voted Monday to require masks in school.

This follows the district’s earlier measures in anticipation of school opening. One of those measures was sending an email blast to district patrons with a PDF stating COVID protocol for the school year. Deputy Superintendent Jaret Tomlinson confirmed Aug. 15 the district had sent the blast Aug. 10. About 6,000 emails were sent, Tomlinson said.

Tomlinson notified district leaders about the blast near the end of the Board of Education’s Aug. 9 meeting at the old Early Childhood Center.

In preparing the PDF, district staff sought to develop methods to address COVID risks, understanding “there is no one thing that’s going to lessen the risk,” Tomlinson said. Those methods include taking student and staff temperatures before entering school buildings, recommending self-monitoring to students and parents, and getting staff and students to social distance.

“These are all important strategies that kind of contribute to what we hope … (will) be a lessening of (the) transmission rate through COIVD throughout our schools,” he said.

In addition, the district strongly recommended all people mask up at district facilities, Tomlinson said. The recommendation has now become a requirement after Monday night’s special board meeting.

“The more people that do wear face coverings … the better it’s going to be for slowing the transmission,” he said before the district issued the latest guidance.

Masks are mandatory on school buses, too. Like other forms of mass transit, such as planes, buses fall under federal mandates, Tomlinson said.

“That’s not something that a school district has any say over,” he said.

Tomlinson emphasized the strategies are fluid, like last school year, when COVID guidelines changed regularly.

“We’re going to do everything we can to do what’s right for our kids and our staff,” he said. “But at the end of the day, if enough people are getting sick, we have to change, right? And at the end of the day, if no one is getting sick, we can also change.”

Other discussion topics included vaccination rates. Through Aug. 9, 65% of residents ages 16 and older in Excelsior Springs’ ZIP Code had at least started vaccinating and 57% of them had finished vaccinating, Tomlinson reported.

“I don’t know specifically all of the ZIP Codes throughout Clay County, but I would venture to bet that’s one of the higher vaccination rates probably in the county,” he said.

The numbers demonstrate “a willingness of people in our community to at least entertain the fact of being vaccinated,” Tomlinson said.

In other COVID-related news, the board approved the district’s safe return plan for on-site instruction. Covering issues such as hybrid and virtual learning schedules, the plan is about “setting the tone for how we plan to go about moving forward with the school year,” Tomlinson said.

The plan is intended for district patrons and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education personnel to view, Tomlinson said.

“It’s a way of showing that we have established policies and practices to evaluate (COVID risks), that the return to in-school learning would be handled appropriately, given the current pandemic status,” he said afterward.