With the Pa. Department of Health’s masking order set to expire Dec. 4 due to a Nov. 16 court ruling, the major topic of business at the Nov. 23 Saucon Valley School Board meeting was the approval of a Health and Safety Plan.

Although uncertainty remains due to continued lawsuits relating to the order, the board and district Solicitor Mark Fitzgerald have expressed their desire to be ready to implement their own plan. Several board members - including President Susan Baxter, Shawn Welch, Bryan Eichfeld and Edward Andres - have consistently voiced their objections to face-covering requirements for students and staff.

Acting Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty provided her first report since being promoted. She informed the board of a survey distributed to district shareholders regarding the use of ESSER emergency relief funds provided by the American Rescue Plan. The survey’s findings will be available on the district’s website and presented at the Dec. 7 meeting, she said.

Vlasaty then presented the somewhat-revised Health and Safety Plan. The plan was first drafted before Governor Tom Wolf announced the masking order in a somewhat last-minute move Sept. 3. If left in place by court rulings, the order would expire Jan. 17, 2022, Wolf said Nov. 8.

The main changes to the plan, which sets masking requirements per building based on rolling COVID case counts, whereas the original version had four ‘tiers of spread,’ Vlasaty said, the revised edition is simplified to two tiers: ‘low’ and ‘high.’

Under ‘high’ spread – defined as five or more new cases in a particular building within one week – masks would be required for all occupants for one week (five school days).

‘Low’ spread, with fewer than five new cases reported in a week, would make masks fully optional outside of parent-chosen, designated ‘masked’ classrooms. There, everybody would be required to be masked regardless of outside circumstances.

Baxter said that the district has been tracking cases since the beginning of the year and aside from “a small influx last week” (which Vlasaty clarified was in the middle school), counts have generally been below the ‘high’ benchmark.

Outgoing board member Sandra Miller inquired how the plan was drafted and where these specific benchmarks originated, noting they “don’t match any… CDC guidelines.” Vlasaty said she and district Business Manager David Bonenberger formulated the plan, acknowledging that its implementation was likely to be “tricky at first.”

Much of the board’s discussion centered on the plan’s definition - or lack thereof - of ‘close contacts’ in the event of a positive case. Miller pushed back on Vlasaty’s insistence at “looking at different options” as modeled by other school districts, Vlasaty said.

One option on the table, she added, was that close contacts would be notified by the district and given the option to quarantine or not. Miller said this defeats the purpose of such requirements in the first place, and asked Vlasaty specifically which districts she was consulting. Vlasaty said East Stroudsburg “has been doing this for quite some time.”

Although board member Michael Karabin acknowledged some community members’ desire to return to more ‘normal’ operations, he urged a “cautious approach.”

He shared a personal anecdote of witnessing a school-aged child get very ill from COVID. “No matter how much you think the virus isn’t affecting most people, just watch a child that’s [sick],” he said. “If an outbreak does come, I take it on me personally.”

Baxter pushed back, reminding Karabin that the issue up for discussion wasn’t the severity of COVID, but in her words, “giving parents the choice” to mask their children or not. Karabin replied; “I wish it were that simple, it’s not… it gets more (complex) than people try to make it.”

Ultimately, the motion passed nearly unanimously, with Andres casting the lone dissenting vote, with the plan set to go into effect either as of Dec. 4 or when the state’s mandate expires.