Atlanta area private schools are facing the same quandary that public schools do as they reopen for fall: how to control the spread of COVID-19 enough to keep students in classrooms in places where public health recommendations have proven divisive.
Many private schools kept their doors open last year when public schools went online, but the new delta variant of the coronavirus that is accelerating infection rates among children presents a greater challenge.
Like public schools, each private campus has implemented its own safety protocols.
The Walker School in Marietta has implemented unobtrusive measures, such as enhanced air filtration and opened windows. They’ve created more space for students to spread out in the dining hall by offering tables under tents outside.
Recently, they mandated masks.
“Some of the parents were ecstatic and some of the parents were unhappy about it,” said Christie Holman, whose job as assistant operations chief there includes leading the school’s COVID-19 task force.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Masks were mandatory there for most of the last school year. The plan was to make them optional for students in seventh through 12th grades this fall since more than 80% of those students are vaccinated, as are nearly 90% of faculty and staff. That changed after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended in July that everyone wear masks in schools, regardless of vaccination status.
Several Atlanta schools that responded to queries by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are also requiring masks indoors, including The Westminster Schools, the Schenck School and The Howard School, which also is separating children into “cohorts” to minimize mixing, a common safety practice in schools last year.
Others have more relaxed mask rules. At Mount Paran Christian School in Kennesaw, measures include hand-sanitizing stations, daily “fogging” to neutralize the virus and upgraded air filters. Masks are optional. They’re also optional at North Cobb Christian School in Kennesaw and at Whitefield Academy in Smyrna. Whitefield’s website said on Friday that masks are “perfectly welcome” but not required “under current conditions.”
The Marist School in Brookhaven has landed somewhere in between, requiring masks indoors only for unvaccinated people, though everyone must have a mask for large gatherings, like mass.
The retreat from the mask requirements of last year has angered some parents.
The Holy Spirit Preparatory School in Sandy Springs, where Meredith Hammons sends her daughter to fourth grade, also has made masks optional. The first week of school her daughter was deemed to have been in close contact with an infected person at the school and was sent home for quarantine, Hammons said.
Hammons spent the ensuing week working from home, trying to keep her daughter on track with her studies. Hammons said she has contacted the school administration about their decision to drop last year’s mask mandate. She worries about the potential for more academic disruptions with future quarantines — and also for her daughter’s health.
“I know the statistics, she’s not likely to die, thank God. But you’re seeing the increases of kids in emergency rooms with the delta variant,” Hammons said. “It’s concerning to me that in the midst of all these cases just blossoming everywhere that they’re not willing to even compromise a little bit on it.”
By Friday, Hammons’ daughter had tested negative for the coronavirus and was back in school.
Edward J. Lindekugel, the head of school, said in a written response that masks have proven controversial at Holy Spirit Prep and that his school wrote its policies after talking with parents and considering public health data about the impact of infections on children.
The school offers online classes for those who are uncomfortable with the protocols, he wrote.
“Like all schools, HSP has parents with opinions on both sides of the mask issue,” he wrote. “Some of our parents believe that wearing masks in school is deleterious to students educationally and emotionally, while others believe the potential protection that masks provide outweighs any possible short and long-term negative learning and psychological impacts.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
A survey by the National Association of Independent Schools indicates that the vast majority of independent schools nationally embrace mask mandates.
About nine in 10 of the 564 schools that responded to a recent survey on safety protocols by the Washington, D.C.-based group said they are requiring face masks some or all of the time.
“Schools really feel that masking is an appropriate way to control the virus and protect their students,” said Myra McGovern, a vice president of the organization. “It also conforms with the CDC recommendations.”
So far, the mask requirement and other protocols at The Walker School, plus the high vaccination rate, seem to be helping. Only two students had tested positive for COVID-19 after nearly a week of school, with minimal quarantines required, Holman, the COVID task force chief there, said Wednesday.
“I’m alarmed about the number of school-aged children who have been identified as COVID positive in the last few weeks,” she said. She’s confident the school has the flexibility to adapt.
“We have a lot of ability to customize, and we have a lot of ability to follow the CDC guidance.”
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