Masks 'Strongly Recommended,' Not Required In Lake Forest Schools

LAKE FOREST, IL — With weeks to go before the start of the second full school year since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Illinois, and public health guidance shifting in response to emerging data about the virus's delta variant, Lake Forest school administrators emphasized the need for nimble and flexible coronavirus risk mitigation plans.

As of the end of July, those plans do not include mandatory masking, testing or vaccinations. But district officials strongly encouraged everyone in school buildings to get inoculated, wear masks indoors and voluntarily get tested when symptomatic or seeking to participate in extracurricular activities without getting vaccinated.

Superintendent Matt Montgomery addressed plans for the 2021-22 school year during a video presentation Thursday evening. He said administrators would continue to pivot in response to public health officials, noting new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Illinois Department of Public Health had been issued since earlier in the week.

"Lake Forest Schools is strongly recommending that all individuals, students staff and visitors, regardless of their vaccination status, wear masks while their on campus in our schools," Montgomery said. "The district, however, does not have a mandate or policy enforcing this decision. However, there is a requirement, per CDC and IDPH, that while on public transportation, or on busses in our case, masks will be required."

Montgomery, who took over as chief of Lake Forest Elementary School District 67 and Lake Forest Community High School District 115 earlier this summer, stressed the importance of mask wearing, but said the question of whether to make them mandatory had been the biggest topic and challenge that administrators had faced when preparing for the year.

"One of the major decisions is that, last year, the governor issued an order to mandate masks. This year, the governor has not made that mandate," Montgomery said. "And therefore we are following in line directly with the language that the CDC and IDPH is using which is 'recommending' universal masking."

In a letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker earlier this month, Montgomery requested that the governor return decision-making about Illinois schools to local districts. He noted that all students and staff at his former K-12 school district, Revere Local School District in Ohio, had full day, in-person learning all year long, with masks optional and no social distancing.

"Roughly 10% of our Revere students and staff elected to wear masks, yet we experienced no uptick in COVID-19 cases, and zero COVID-19 outbreaks," Montgomery told Pritzker in the July 12 letter. According to news reports, masks became optional in Montgomery's former district June 2 ahead of the last day of school June 8.

Director of School Safety and Security Lane Linder said Lake Forest schools would provide rapid antigen testing, pending parental approval, for those who show coronavirus symptoms at school. For asymptomatic students, the current guidance recommends testing for those participating in athletics and extracurriculars.

"We are leaving those decisions up to parents to pursue testing on their own and provide the results of those tests to the school, so that we will have that information available to determine any levels of exposure or any risk to other students or staff in the building," Linder said.

Starting next week, families will receive a survey from the district inquiring about the vaccination status of their students, Linder said. Parents of fully vaccinated students can voluntarily submit proof, notify the district their child is not vaccinated or decline to answer. Those that do not provide proof will be considered unvaccinated for the purposes of contact tracing and quarantines.

Michelle Shinn, director of school improvement, said the fewer people that wear masks in the school building, the more who will need to be quarantined under options permitted by CDC guidelines for handling close contacts with confirmed coronavirus infections.

"Without masking in our schools we are really only eligible for one of those options, which would be a 14-day quarantine. There are other options for shortened quarantine, but they do require mask-wearing for all individuals," Shinn said.

With a return to full capacity and a more traditional schedule, Shinn said the 2021-22 school year would provide an environment for significantly more close contacts between students.

"Our contact tracing and efforts to keep kids in school could be toppled pretty quickly, just due to the definition of close contact and the option to wear a mask or not," she said. "So it's really important, especially for our younger students who are not eligible for a vaccination to be masked, and that allows them to stay in school as well as their peers in the classroom."

Responding to a question from a community member, Montgomery said a spike in coronavirus infections, a school outbreak or changes to guidance from state, local and federal public health officials could lead to masks going from being strongly recommended to mandated inside schools.

"We're not emphasizing choice over safety. In fact, we are in line with the CDC and IDPH guidelines and recommendations — word-for-word, in fact — and the plan that we've built, we believe, is nimble and agile," he said. "We also want to acknowledge that health and wellness is a very personal matter and there's personal decisions that we would like to afford to family members. So I believe in finding a balance between all of these components, which has been most challenging."

Classes start for all students Aug. 18 at Lake Forest High School and Aug. 25 in District 67 schools.

UPDATE: Lake Forest Schools Superintendent Responds To New Statewide School Mask Mandate