West Bath School will require all staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a face mask while indoors to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I would love to be able to say we have enough information and masks are no longer necessary and we can remove them, but I think to start the year, all the data points to this is where we need to begin,” West Bath School Principal and Superintendent Emily Thompson told the board Wednesday.

The school board unanimously approved a back-to-school plan Wednesday that outlines the school’s policies intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. There were no comments from the public.

Like last year, West Bath School will offer full-time in-person instruction with no fully remote or hybrid instruction option. However, a remote plan can be made if a student has a medical need, according to Thompson.

Some COVID-19 procedures are sticking around from last year, like social distancing and frequent hand washing. Desks in classrooms will be spaced three feet apart and students will need to separate by six feet while eating. School administrators are also asking parents to continue screening their students for COVID-19 symptoms before bringing them to school, though they don’t need to report this step through the app families used last year.

“Our collaborative planning team felt like our community invested a lot of energy and time into making sure they were doing the right thing by us and helping to keep us all safe, and we don’t think we need to use the app this year,” said Thompson.

Students will notice some school policies have changed, restoring them to their pre-pandemic state. For example, students no longer need to keep six feet of space between themselves and others while on the bus and students can once again share toys and equipment at recess. The school day is returning to its pre-pandemic 8:25 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule with early drop-off beginning at 8:05 a.m.

Some changes incited by the COVID-19 pandemic are staying in place, not out of necessity, but per the request of teachers. Namely, students will continue eating breakfast in their classrooms and can choose whether to eat lunch in their classrooms or the cafeteria.

“We added breakfasts in the classrooms as part of our COVID-19 procedures last year because we felt like we had to and teachers really like that,” said Thompson. “It was just another period of time where kids had to be silent, but the teacher could read to them or there could be other conversations that don’t always happen in the span of a full school day.”

Thompson mentioned the Maine CDC is encouraging people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as a way to slow the spread of the disease, but reminded the board that, “Not a single child in this building is currently eligible for vaccination.” West Bath School only teaches to fifth grade and only people ages 12 and older are eligible for the vaccine.

Thompson said the board will review every element in the school’s COVID-19 policy as the pandemic continues and data changes.

“As a parent, I’m incredibly excited by the things that are coming back to as normal as possible,” said School Board Chairman Keith Hinds. “Look, none of us love the fact that there are masks. I, personally, think they are necessary. I’m hopeful that down the road we can revisit that and get to a point where we don’t need masks. As an individual, I don’t think we’re there yet. But, there are a lot of positives in this plan and let’s not lose sight of those just because masks are a hot button issue right now.”

West Bath is the latest school district in the southern Midcoast to outline what school will look like for students this year, what COVID-19 policies remain in place, and what can change. It joins Brunswick- and Topsham-area schools in requiring universal masking.

Regional School Unit 1, which covers the Bath area, is expected to make a decision on Monday after parents disagreed over masks in a meeting this week. Freeport-area schools will also address the matter next week.

Pooled testing on the horizon

Thompson said the school hopes to implement pooled testing for COVID-19 as another tool to keep students and staff safe, but that won’t be ready on the first day of school.

Pooled testing is a method of testing many people for COVID-19 at once using fewer resources. In a pooled test samples from multiple people are mixed together into one sample which is then tested using one test. In a school setting, students in a class who opt-into the program would be tested together each week.

The test is anonymous, but if the pooled test comes back positive, further testing would need to be done to determine which student is carrying the virus.

Under the Maine Department of Education guidelines, 30% or more of staff and students would need to agree to be tested for the program to be implemented in a school.

West Bath School sent a nonbinding survey to families about whether they’re interested in having their students participate in pooled testing. Of the 65% of families that responded, 80% said they’re interested in the testing method.

“That’s a really important piece that, once we have it, may change the dynamics of all of this,” Thompson said of pooled testing.

Sagadahoc County remains in the CDC’s “moderate” community transmission category with 17 new cases over the last seven days. Since March 2020, 1,525 people in Sagadahoc County have tested positive for COVID-19 and 12 have died as of Thursday, according to the Maine CDC.

The state reported 182 new cases of COVID-19 and 12 new deaths Thursday as the latest surge in the pandemic — driven largely by the more transmissible delta variant and the unvaccinated — continues. Since vaccines became available in Maine, there have been 37,993 cases of COVID-19 and 863 of them – slightly over 2 percent – have been breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated people. The remaining cases are in unvaccinated people, the Portland Press Herald reported.

The Maine CDC has recorded 73,269 cases of COVID-19, and 921 deaths since the pandemic hit Maine began in March 2020.