Orange school board limits fans at athletic events and revises quarantine, mask rules
Orange County Schools students and staff will return temporarily to universal masking, no-talking lunches, and fewer spectators at events.
The changes approved Monday night also include new isolation and quarantine guidelines to help keep students and staff safe and maintain in-person education five days a week during the omicron variant’s surge, Superintendent Monique Felder said.
The school board voted to require students and staff to wear masks unless they are eating lunch, at least until Feb. 8. The lunch period will be reduced to 15 minutes with no talking and students at least 3 feet apart.
District staff, over 92% of which have reported being fully vaccinated, will be required to get a COVID-19 booster shot once Gov. Roy Cooper mandates one for state employees. The district has given religious exemptions to 70 employees, staff said.
Students and staff statewide returned to school last week from the holiday break to a surge in COVID-19 cases, mostly due to the fast-moving omicron variant. In Wake County, the rising positive case rate left many Wake County students without a bus ride to school.
Orange County Schools had 187 cases among students and 26 cases involving staff last week, and asked just over 120 students to quarantine, staff said Monday.
Isolation, quarantine, limits on fans
On Monday, the board also approved updated isolation and quarantine guidelines that will require students and staff who test positive to stay home for at least five days, and then wear a mask at all times for the first five days back, said Patrick Abele, deputy superintendent of operations.
Unvaccinated students and staff who are exposed to someone with COVID-19 also must stay home for five days and then get tested, he said. If the test is negative, they can return with masks for the first five days. Vaccinated students and staff who have received a booster shot or are not eligible for the booster can return to school immediately but wear a mask for 10 days.
Requiring everyone to wear a mask at all times will add a layer of protection but also help maintain those students’ privacy, Abele said.
The district is prepared to close classrooms and move learning online, Felder said, but “we know that despite our teachers’ best efforts, it’s important to remember the extraordinary challenges many students faced during remote learning last school year.”
Orange County’s school board took a lot of heat in the fall when it limited the number of spectators at athletic events as cases spiked from the delta variant of COVID-19. The reinstated rules let Orange County students who are participating in sports and performances invite two spectators each to those events. The two-person limit also applies to teams from other county schools.
No spectators will be allowed for out-of-county teams, and no concessions will be sold at any event.
It’s hard to move backward on masking and other restrictions, board Chair Carrie Doyle said Monday.
“I do believe, as y’all have said and as our medical experts presented tonight, that this will be short-lived, that we can get past this peak and prevent overburdening our health care system and our contact tracers and staff, and that hopefully by early February be able to ease” the restrictions, Doyle said.
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 9:56 AM.
