School Board Set For Mask Vote?

    After extended debates, the Lake County School board is expected to vote on a school mask policy at a meeting scheduled for this Thursday, September 9. The meeting will be held beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the chambers of the Lake County Commission, located at 315 West Main Street in Tavares.
    The meeting is expected to be a culmination of several weeks of on and off again discussion about the school system’s policy toward masking in its schools. Currently, masks are optional on Lake County Schools campuses, but that could change - at least in certain circumstances.
    Lake County Schools Superintendent Diane Kornegay has forwarded a plan that would increase masking requirements in schools where COVID outbreaks reach certain thresholds. The plan calls for masks to be mandatory when a school's two-week rolling average of positive tests is above 5%. Masks would remain required until the school's positivity rate falls below 5% for 14 days.
    The targeted approach differs from some other area counties that have pursued county-wide mask mandates in recent weeks.
    “If the fire alarm goes off at Treadway Elementary, we don’t evacuate the students at Beverly shores Elementary,” Kornegay told the board at a recent meeting. “But we react to the alarm at Treadway.”
    The school board has already encouraged masking among students and adults at county schools, but has been slow to move beyond that position.
    "Governor Ron DeSantis' executive over prohibiting school districts from implementing mask requirements without allowing parents to opt-out remains the law," said district representative Sherri Owens, "despite a judge filing a final written order that ruled the governor's order to be unconstitutional. The state immediately appealed and the judge's order was immediately stayed. Board members have voted by majority to follow the law, so Kornegay's proposal would allow parents… to opt-out of the mask requirement."
    Owens said should the law change and the superintendent's plan be put in place, a medical exemption would be required for a student opt-out. Additionally, students could temporarily learn from home without being marked absent.