The Kodiak Island Borough School District is developing plans to mask children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, once school opens on Aug. 30. Students in the 2020-2021 school year wore masks after schools reopened.
An earlier plan was to have masks optional for students and staff. But the district staff is now recommending to the school board that the younger students be required to wear masks this fall, but masks for middle and high school students will still be optional, although recommended for those not fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The district required masks during summer school this year for all students, but if a big spike in Covid cases is seen in Kodiak, Superintendent Larry LeDoux will ask that the mask mandate be reinstated for the children too young to be vaccinated.
Kodiak has seen 1,161 cases of Covid-19 among the 13,500 residents, or about 9 percent of the population of the island. Six deaths are attributed to the virus.
Since July 17, some 33 new cases of the virus have been diagnosed in the Kodiak Borough, a slight uptick in cases mirroring the upward trends seen around the world this summer.
There are 219 students in the Kodiak Island School District in six “town schools” and five “rural schools.”
