More: UPDATED LIST: More schools are switching to universal mask policies as COVID-19 cases rise
Students needing COVID-19 tests to get out from under quarantine are among those swamping the Cincinnati area's emergency rooms . Health officials Wednesday urged people without COVID-19 symptoms to go elsewhere for testing.
That's one of the benefits of this pilot program, Mason Schools Superintendent Jonathan Cooper said. The state will be providing rapid COVID-19 tests specifically for their data collection at participating schools, so local health care providers won't experience additional strain.
There are many reasons why these quarantines are negatively impacting kids and the community, Cooper said. Students' mental health suffers when they aren't in school. And experts across the state agree that students learn better in person.
"Quarantining healthy students is a significant issue among all school leaders as it is our collaborative desire to keep students in school," Little Miami Schools wrote to district families last week.
"We recognize the burden that quarantine puts on our students, their families, and our educators. We feel as if quarantining healthy students socially isolates them from their learning community and negatively impacts their mental health."
For now, the best defense for families hoping to keep their kids in school is to mask them, or get them vaccinated. There is no statewide health order requiring masks in schools this year , but DeWine has urged districts to require them.
"The way we keep our kids in schools is for schools to make a decision to mask and require masking for everybody in the school," DeWine said Wednesday. "We saw how well that worked last year. It worked phenomenally well last year. It can work that well again."
Pilot program: How will it work?
In an effort to keep more healthy students in school, Cooper brought his peers together in Warren County and started writing letters to DeWine. Instead of complaining, Cooper said, they offered to work with state experts and doctors to come up with a plan.
"We're so grateful because to get the governor's attention again this year and to have his whole team at our disposal, ready to have the top doctors in the state to join us," he said, "You just can't get better than that."
Under the pilot project, DeWine said, a student exposed to the coronavirus could stay in school as long as they wore a mask and took two rapid tests a few days apart. If a student tests positive, they will be sent home to isolate. Details are still being worked out, he said.
In the past, districts have had 300 or more students quarantined when only two or so students have been sick, Cooper said. That wouldn't happen with the pilot program.
"Instead of 298 kids healthy at home(...) being frustrated and possibly struggling with their mental health, they're at school," Cooper said. "And now they're wearing a mask. And not only are they wearing a mask, now they're participating in the testing protocol giving us more data to help us be more strategic."
If successful, DeWine said, the protocol could be offered to other school districts.
Cooper said that parents will be given the option to participate in the program if they wish; it is not required. Unvaccinated, unmasked students who are exposed to COVID-19 can still stay home to quarantine if they and their families wish.
Mason City Schools has a mask mandate for students in grades pre-K through 6. This measure was determined early in the school year as another way to prevent mass quarantines, Cooper said.
