FORT SMITH -- The School Board canceled the School District's requirement that students, staff members and visitors wear masks in district buildings and vehicles that hold two people or more.
The board voted 4-3 to remove the mandatory mask policy effective immediately. Board members Troy Eckelhoff, Susan McFerran, Dalton Person and Matt Blaylock voted in favor of ending the policy while Dee Blackwell, Yvonne Keaton-Martin and Talicia Richardson voted against it.
The School Board authorized Terry Morawski, district superintendent, to implement a 60-day mask requirement effective immediately on Aug. 9. The board voted on an emergency regulation to require school staff members to wear masks on Aug. 12.
The policy, which was due to expire Oct. 8, allowed Morawski to make exceptions to the mask requirement at his discretion and using information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Arkansas Department of Health.
The School Board approved extending the mask policy for 30 more days on Sept. 27. This was also meant to give the district time to draft a new policy specifying a time frame using data from the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, which collects data on known covid-19 infections per 10,000 residents in a school district over 14 days.
Morawski told the board on Monday that the School District administration recommended removing the mask requirement. This was due to the number of covid-19 cases dropping significantly in the School District, region and state as per data provided by the Center for Health Improvement, as well as new quarantine rules being available that are expected to lessen quarantines for students and staff.
Support for the idea among School District staff was also communicated via a survey that garnered more than 1,400 responses, according to Morawski. Representatives from the School District's certified personnel policy committee supported "a loosening of the requirement" as well.
Monday's motion was made by Person and seconded by Eckelhoff.
This comes after the board of the neighboring Greenwood School District voted to remove its mask mandate Thursday. A post on the Greenwood School District Facebook page that same day similarly attributed this decision to a decrease in covid-19 cases.