Following about an hour and a half of discussion, the Panorama School Board took no action on a mask policy at their special meeting Tuesday.

The Board discussed the new guidelines set by the state last week that stipulates if a person was in contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19 and both people were wearing face masks, then the person who doesn’t have COVID-19 doesn’t have to quarantine for 14 days. The administrators spoke of how their mitigation strategies to place those with face masks together in the last week have helped with the situation. Superintendent Shawn Holloway explains this method is to avoid forcing any student into quarantine if they were wearing a face mask and the positive case they were in contact with wasn’t wearing a mask.

The Board members discussed possibilities like having one school building wear masks, and they voiced frustration at how they can’t control student and staff behavior outside the District, as Holloway pointed out that most of those quarantined were because of outside exposure rather than from someone in a school building. The Board also asked whether they would require students to wear masks during athletic practices if they imposed a mask mandate. Though Board members and administrators did mention that many students involved in sports and extracurricular activities have worn masks in order to avoid possible exposure and quarantine. The Board came to an agreement to put a mask mandate as an action item for every future regular Board meeting, including next Monday, so they can update themselves on current positive case and quarantine numbers for the District and decide accordingly.