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The following a Wednesday, September 15th letter from the Office of Jackson-Madison County School System Superintendent Dr. Marlon D. King:
As always, ongoing communication and transparency have been the bedrock of this administration. In an effort to continue this course between the District office, schools, parents, and our community, I would like to provide an update on the mask opt-out option among students in the Jackson-Madison County School System.
Our Social and Behavioral Services Department, led by Dr. Shalonda Franklin and her talented team, has been tasked with adding mask-opt out form collection to their daily duties. The flow of information between parents, schools, and the Central Office has been improved through their efforts.
A total of 294 students have opted out of mask usage since our mask mandatory protocols were extended districtwide on Tuesday, September 7. That’s less than 3% of our total in-person enrollment.
While we are not surprised, we are certainly encouraged to see the overwhelming majority of our students continue to utilize the practice of mask usage. Our parents have been amazing in their support of this initiative.
The aforementioned data further qualifies our previous messages around our schools encouraging mask usage. Considering the great variety of our neighborhoods and 24 traditional schools, this level of participation deserves to be celebrated. JMCSS employees, our students, and parents continue to rally around safety! Additionally, administrators at our Cyberschool, Jackson-Academic STEAM Academy, reported full mask usage among students who showed up in-person to participate in pre-assessment testing.
Our Coordinated School Health representatives will continue to track COVID-19 cases among our students. While we are hopeful our community’s increased emphasis on students using masks will lead to a decrease in COVID isolations and quarantines in schools, we know this practice has been utilized by our students since school began.
The Jackson-Madison County School System will continue to be a responsible community partner in our region’s fight against COVID-19.
Yours in service – M