Mask Mandate Returns to Fort Atkinson Schools

At last night’s Fort Atkinson School Board meeting, the board discussed for around an hour going back to masks in all indoor spaces. The board was presented with three options: masks for elementary students only, masks for elementary students and middle school students, and masks for everyone.

The board agreed to start with Option 3 and keep voting until they either passed one of failed all 3. Before the board discussed, there was around 2 hours of public comment, which was originally limited to a half hour but then extended to allow everyone to speak.

One woman became overly aggressive with her speech and was escorted out of the meeting, and while there was some pushback between audience members during public comment, it remained relatively civil for the most part. Once the board began discussions, every so often a parent would try and chime in. One board member harshly told parents “For 8 hours a day we are in charge of your kids” and got very honest when saying that “if your child falls or comes to school with burns, we are mandated to take care of them. You give your kids to us so you can go to work”. The same board member said he was tired of hearing the notion from parents that “I’m going to raise my kids perfectly so you don’t have to… I kept quiet last meeting” and before the board member finished his sentence, an angry parent said “maybe you should do that now” which the board member responded with “thanks for coming”. After that, the meeting remained completely civil, until the end, when the board decided to vote. One board member appeared highly conflicted and asked for more information, of which they were told there wasn’t anything else to add.

Another portion of the discussion centered around contact tracing, and the board coming to the conclusion that hiring a contact tracer would mean adding a full time position and that would take quite some time.

One board member who previously pined for an optional mask guidance said they had changed their tune and were looking to make masks mandatory. The Board voted nearly unanimously, with 1 no vote, to make masks mandatory in indoor spaces in the district for everyone until their next board meeting which was pushed to October 26. As some people left the meeting, they expressed their displeasure with the board, but they left the room peacefully.

The district reported more than two dozen cases of the virus among students but declined to reveal the number of teachers with the virus as “that number is too small”, however the board received a letter from the Jefferson County Department of Health earlier in the day that they were requested to change to a mask mandate.