Walker County School Board pressed on instituting mask mandate

WALKER COUNTY, Ga. (WDEF) – Since January, Walker County students have returned full-time to in-person learning in the classroom.

But many teachers are now calling on the school board to institute a mask mandate, saying that their safety is at risk.

“We just need to mandate masks. They’re proven to work, they’re proven to slow the spread. They’re proven to protect people. And for some reason, our superintendent and board of ed will not mandate them. They – I’ve heard that they don’t have the authority to mandate them and that is not true. They do have the authority,” says Debbie Baker, president of Walker County’s Association of Educators.

She says that members of the school board need to step up and impose stricter safety measures, arguing that the school board has the authority to impose a mask mandate despite some members of the board saying that they didn’t have that power under state law.

She says that she doesn’t believe virtual learning is effective in helping kids learn, and that it’s best to focus on how to stay in-person in a safe manner.

“In-person learning is best for students and educators when it’s possible, and what I mean by when it’s possible is when it’s safe. Simply mandating masks helps to make it much safer. If the spread is too high, then I think that hybrid is the better option, rather than virtual,” says Baker.

Glen Brown, the Director of Student Services for Walker County Schools, argues that the district is doing everything it can to prioritize student and faculty safety.

“Both our virtual students, our in-person students, and our employees are what we are reporting to the public every week on our website. But in addition to that we are also making out a schoolcast notification, a school messenger call if you will, that goes to every single one of our buildings whenever there is a positive case with that building,” says Brown.

He says that decisions are largely being made on a case-by-case basis.

“We’re going to assess schools on a case-by-case basis, not just the whole district but rather if there’s one building that’s having an exceptionally high number of cases or close-contact quarantines, we’ll make those decisions on a case-by-case, building by building basis.”