With the return of classes quickly approaching, the Aug. 10 Saucon Valley school board meeting was somewhat predictably fraught with disagreement over the district’s Health and Safety Plan for the upcoming year. The plan, which was approved at the July 27 meeting, calls for universal optional masking across all schools, meaning neither teachers, staff nor students will be required to wear a face covering regardless of vaccination status against COVID-19.

The meeting, which Superintendent Dr. Craig Butler, board Vice President Shamim Pakzad, and board members Sandra Miller and Tracy Magnotta all attended remotely, began with a few remarks from Butler, who said “you can kind of feel the excitement in the air” regarding the impending onset of the new academic year. While students are set to return August 23, faculty and staff would begin reporting to their respective buildings the week prior, he said.

Although it did not appear on the meeting’s agenda, it didn’t take long for the subject to turn to the proverbial elephant in the room: features of the Health and Safety Plan, particularly optional masking in all students. Discussion on the topic began with public comments.

Amy Ramsberger, a self-described ICU and cardiac nurse for the past decade, said her incoming first-grade daughter, who will be enrolled in the district’s new Spanish Immersion Program, does not want to wear a mask. “I did the research and I did come up with a few articles regarding masking and (learning) second languages,” she said, claiming that students show poor outcomes under those conditions. Child-to-child spread of COVID is “nonexistent, essentially,” she also claimed, as she urged the board to stick to their initial plan.

Lower Saucon Township Council Vice President Jason Banonis was next and agreed with Ramsberger. He also thanked the board for what he called “tremendous vision and strength against a very vocal group” who didn’t want to bring students back in-person last year.

District business manager David Bonenberger read an email comment from district parent Victoria Opthof-Cordaro, who said she will have children in school who are too young to be vaccinated. “I find it irresponsible for the district to take the position that masks are optional,” she said. “Masking is not like choosing between different color crayons or about personal choice,” it’s about protecting the community from a “highly contagious virus that kills,” she added. “Our district was successful last year due to the very specific and well-enforced safety measures.”

Butler shared his thoughts on recent developments, saying there was “growing concern” from district leadership about increased COVID-related hospitalizations and transmission rates, particularly among children. The CDC and Pa. Department of Health are still recommending universal masking for at least the first four-to-six weeks of the school year, he said.

He added that he was uneasy about the “volatile nature” of the widespread Delta variant, as Northampton County is under ‘high transmission’ status, and he said a St. Luke’s medical team agreed during a recent consultation. “If an outbreak were to occur, without a layered strategy such as masking, distancing, etc... the effect could in turn be worse than we would like,” he said.

Butler continued to urge “caution to the district leadership team,” as he said if they don’t consider implementing universal masking to begin the year, they should have some “minimal thresholds in terms of transmission rates per week” based on CDC guidelines in place which would implement universal masking under certain conditions.

Board member Bryan Eichfeld expressed his preference to “stay with the plan as it exists.” The current plan will provide for both fully-masked and unmasked classes at elementary level, he said, adding “I think there’s still a lot of parents who want to go with masks optional.”

Edward Andres said he believes “the parents who feel comfortable with mask-only, we can accommodate that to appease their concerns” without requiring universal masking. If the administration wants to make changes, he said, they should advertise the changes prior to the meeting in order to allow parents and board members time to consider and add their thoughts and opinions.

Cedric Dettmar offered a somewhat different perspective. “I totally agree with Ed’s sentiment that parents should be able to make decisions for their children,” he said. “(But) what’s going to happen when someone comes to school and they (test positive) and they’ve been in school for a few days? If they were in a classroom where most people weren’t wearing a mask, we’re going to have a half a dozen or more kids who have to go into quarantine.”

He emphasized that while simply ignoring health officials’ quarantine advice could be a route the board decided to take, families could start pulling their children from the district over safety concerns. This could cost Saucon Valley “huge amounts of money,” he said, adding “My concern is about keeping the school open.” He continued that the plan in its current form could also end up with teachers being reluctant to come to work. “The last thing we want to do is... (have) our kids stuck at home on Zoom and probably having missed quite a lot of time.”

Magnotta inquired about the current quarantine protocols, which became one of the main points of contention for the remainder of the meeting. Butler answered that Pa. DoH guidelines call for an isolation period of 14 days, but it can be shorter with a negative test and in the absence of symptoms. The district would also be responsible for notifying the DoH of all cases, close contacts and resulting quarantines, he added.

Pakzad said he believes the plan is “inadequate in two areas.” First, he said, “we don’t have a protocol which is well defined about when and if we have positive cases reported to the school.” Secondly, he asked “How do we ensure that we can continue to have school? What happens when we have an outbreak?”

Masking isn’t about “protecting one’s self” at this point, he continued, “it’s about the operations of the school.” Looking at the latest numbers, he said, shows “we are at the point where we are about three times higher… in (Northampton) County than we were last year at this time… This is a stark contrast with May of this year, just a few months ago where we had two, three new cases per day for the county.”

“I hear everybody on, they want to leave parents to make their own decisions…,” Magnotta chimed in. However, she said, “It is imperative that it is crystal-clear to all of the parents that if their child is sitting three feet away from somebody who comes down with COVID and they are unmasked, they are going to be sent home for 10 days or until they have a negative COVID test.”

Miller agreed with requiring more robust masking policies, saying at prior meetings “many (members) expressed interest in following their guidelines when we got to ‘substantial’ or ‘high’ (transmission levels). Well we’re now in ‘substantial’ or ‘high’ for a period of time.”

Butler concurred, adding “I was, and still am, excited to return to as high of a degree of normalcy as possible, however, my concerns individually - and I think I’m presenting on behalf of the district leadership team - (are) those that have been expressed by some of the directors this evening in terms of the widespread impact of a number of students having to isolate because they’re not masked… My motive is keeping our schools operational.”

The meeting then began turning somewhat contentious, as Eichfeld said “the other thing that I want to bring up is… there’s been a lot of studies that (masks) don’t work.” He didn’t share any further details on the studies he further referenced, saying “to keep people happy I put on a cloth mask and everybody’s happy with that, but from what I’ve seen in the studies, they really have no effect.”

Miller then asked for a copy of the studies Eichfeld referenced, saying “I’ve sat and listened to these numbers that keep getting thrown out. Everyone has proven, over and over again in every possible way, that the mitigation effort of masking has been successful.” She suggested posting links to the studies on the district’s website, so residents can see “the documentation that our board members are using to say that masking is not effective.”

Shawn Welch supported Eichfeld, saying “I’ve looked at the numbers, they’re going up, but they can fool you. Look at England, their numbers went way up, now they’re going down.” He subsequently brought up immigration, claiming the federal government has been “dropping (COVID-positive immigrants) into Allentown.”

Andres referred to what he called “the ‘doom and gloom’ crowd,” saying they are “doing a disservice to our community.” Eichfeld agreed, saying “COVID is going to be with us. This is the ‘new flu.’ We need to learn how to live with this and not have everyone walking around with masks forever… Our students are the least vulnerable to COVID.” He also claimed that the death rate in children is “extremely low.”

Solicitor Mark Fitzgerald offered his thoughts from a legal perspective, as he said both ‘close contacts’ and ‘quarantine’ aren’t as well-defined as they were last year. Some districts are coming up with their own “defensible” policies that make sense that don’t require kids being out of school for 14 days, he said, adding that he personally wants to look at most updated DoH and CDC recommendations before suggesting any changes.

Board president Susan Baxter “(likes) the way our current plan is written (and) I like the idea that the parents have options,” she said. “I also question the actual effectiveness of these cloth masks for preventing COVID. But we do have a hole in our plan that we need to figure out. We need to come up with something.”

Finally, Dettmar suggested having some kind of amendment ready to propose at the next board meeting Aug. 24, which will be one day after students report. In response to a question from district resident Mark Salgado, Baxter suggested that a special meeting could be called before the next regularly-scheduled one, but the meeting concluded with no such plans made.