LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After more than 70 students tested positive for COVID-19 within the first eight days of school, Greater Clark County Schools announced a change in its masking policy on Saturday.
In a letter and voicemail sent to parents, Superintendent Mark Laughner said the school district will require face coverings for staff and students starting on Monday. GCCS recommended face coverings, but did not make them mandatory at the start of the school year on July 28.
"After analyzing the data from the first eight days of school, both last night and this morning, the district has made the decision to require all students and staff to wear a mask while in Greater Clark County Schools buildings and on buses," Laughner says in the voicemail.
The school district in southern Indiana currently has over 1,100 students completing a 14-day quarantine due to contact tracing.
"Our job is to educate students and we have had to quarantine far too many students the first eight days of school," Laughner said. "We need our students in school, not at home."
At the beginning of the last school year, 30 GCCS students tested positive for COVID-19 in August, according to Laughner.
"It just tells us there's a lot of Delta variant activity out in our community right now, and that's why you're seeing some of the enhanced precautions," said Clark County Public Health Officer Dr. Eric Yazel.
The district's cases have yet to be confirmed as the variant, but Yazel says more than 80% of new cases in Indiana are the Delta variant. Officials are operating under the assumption the student cases are also Delta.
The health department is in communication with the school district daily, helping to monitor cases and provide guidance.
"[GCCS] felt like it was important for parents to have the choice initially and I think that's reasonable," said Yazel. "But now it's kind of gotten to a situation where it's just going to interfere with daily interactions of schools, and so [they] had to do something more aggressive. I commend them for being willing to make that change."
He adds that while masking won't prevent all cases, it will slow transmission and help to prevent large numbers of students from being quarantined.
"That's the thing, we want to keep our kids in school. When you have over a thousand kids out, obviously nobody wants that," said Yazel. "So by masking, if you can decrease the number of kids that are quarantined when there is a positive case. That'll help uninterrupted school for our kids and things along those lines."
While Clark County is in the red or orange zone for COVID-19 cases, GCCS will require students and staff to wear masks inside buildings and on school buses.
Clark County is currently an orange zone for cases of COVID-19 with a 7-day positivity rate of 11.18%.
"We have evidence that a few of those positive cases were school community spread, not just general community spread," Laughner said. "In the fight against COVID-19, we will not eliminate the spread, but we do believe there are measures we can take to reduce the spread."
Yazel says it's the in-school transmission he finds especially concerning.
"When we're catching cases that are just community at large that doesn't necessarily indicate a risk within the school," said Yazel. "But when we start seeing in-school transmission that does kind of change the picture a little bit."
Along with the updated masking policy, Laughner says classrooms will be adjusted to accommodate students being spaced apart.
In the meantime, Yazel says the health department will continue monitoring and advising the schools as things progress.
"Please be patient with us and understand that the minute we can move to less restrictive things for our kids, we absolutely will," said Yazel.
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