Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 aligns with state mask mandate

All students in Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 will have to wear masks following the state’s issuance of a mask mandate for Illinois schools last Wednesday, district staff said Monday evening.

Previously, District 47 had decided to make masks “encouraged” but not required.

But now, with the mandate, all preschool through eighth-graders will need face coverings in school buildings in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.

“As we did throughout 2020-21, we will work with the health department and monitor the metrics to be responsive in our implementation of mitigation measures, and increase or decrease measures as appropriate and in response to the transmission level both in and outside of our schools,” Superintendent Kathy Hinz said in a document attached to an agenda for Monday’s school board meeting.

“We ask that the community do their part with mitigation measures outside of the schools so that we can keep our schools healthy, safe and open for in-person learning for the students without disruption,” she said.

The new mask mandate now means a July survey, emailed to families to gauge interest in a mask-required classroom, is moot. Responses from the survey netted 590 responses, the district said in a presentation posted online from Monday’s school board meeting.

“The spread of responses across buildings and grade levels would require that the majority of students would need to change schools and parents would need to provide transportation if we were to create these classrooms,” the district said. “Given the governor’s executive order #18 mandating masks, we are not pursuing establishing these classrooms.”

With mitigations in place, District 47 plans on returning to pre-COVID class sizes, with students seated 3 or more feet apart from each other and a return to the full instructional day.

When in the cafeteria, students at all grade levels will have seating charts. The district said it will follow prevention and mitigation strategies to the greatest extent possible and continue its cleaning and disinfecting protocols.

Nonessential visitors, volunteers and activities will be limited, and anyone visiting a district facility will have to adhere to all health and safety measures at all times.

If a student has to quarantine, they will complete assignments created by their teacher at home. Depending on the student’s age, the subject area and how long they have to quarantine, they could potentially also attend class remotely.

In the presentation, District 47 said its goals are to keep students and staff healthy and safe; keep in-person learning open and ongoing; and reduce the number and length of quarantines, “which increases students’ ability to be present at school in classrooms learning.”

However, Monday night’s presentation noted that a new disaster proclamation by the governor, additional restrictions from the state or local health department could affect these plans for in-person schooling.