WEISER, Idaho — The Weiser School District Board of Trustees voted to put several strategies in place over the next four and a half weeks to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. One of those strategies is mandatory masks are worn by staff and students when they are in buildings and classrooms during the school day.
Masks are not required when outside, on a school bus or at school events like sports, according to Superintendent Wade Wilson. Students and staff also don't have to wear a mask when eating, participating in activities like speech therapy, playing a wind instrument or other "special scenarios that require the removal of a mask."
Other temporary strategies to be implemented include:
- Suspend the use of non-essential classroom volunteers and visitors
- Restrict visitors during the day to the main office area
- Increase efforts to provide distance between desks and between students in classrooms
- Expand eating area options at schools and allow students to eat in classrooms, outside, or in other locations besides the cafeteria when conditions allow
- Limit staff release for professional development when a substitute is required
- Ensure sanitizer is available in all classrooms and workspaces
Our goal is to implement a few strategies that are intended to help us slow the possible spread of illness in our schools. We need to maintain healthy staff and student numbers so that we can continue to offer effective in-person learning to students every day. Although some of the strategies may be inconvenient for a while, our hope is that they will help us to return to more normal school conditions as quickly as possible. The success of these measures will require some give and take, and it will take all of us working together for the benefit of everyone. We all play on the same team, and we are all WOLVERINES.
The strategies go into place on September 13 and will be re-evaluated on October 13 at the next regularly scheduled meeting.
