During its special meeting held on Tuesday, August 10, 2021, the Bluford USD #318 Board of Education approved the return to school plan for the 2021-2022 school year. We will continue to maintain an environment in which we can serve students in person as we did the entire 2020-2021 school year.
A highly discussed piece of the plan is that face masks must be worn in accordance with the latest Executive Order while indoors at school. This includes all District transportation such as school buses and driver education vehicles. In general, people do not need to wear masks when outdoors. We recognize that there are strong feelings on each side of the masking issue and we will continue to advocate for the ability to make decisions based on local conditions. We will continue practices in place last school year such as the utilization of outdoor classrooms and frequent mask breaks since there are very limited requirements for masks outdoors.
The plan details the layered mitigations which will be in place to begin the school, procedural aspects as well as processes such as changes to the definition of close contacts. One key change is with universal masking in place, individuals do not need to be considered close contacts or contact traced in many instances. Information included in the presentation made to the Board may be viewed here.
As stated, the district is committed to continued advocacy for local control whereby decisions can be made by locally elected officials based on information relevant to our community in lieu of statewide mandates.