Superintendent Ken Crawford

At their regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 8, the Highland school board discussed how best to open their doors to outside groups while still preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

“I’m not going to say [this is] normal, because normal this is not,” superintendent Ken Crawford said. “We’re still going to require masks, we’re still going to make sure there’s not a bunch of food going into the stands.”

With Governor Reynolds lifting many lockdown restrictions on Sunday, Feb. 7, the board decided that the elementary gym would be open only to small gatherings. However, the board members were wary to lift restrictions on wearing masks indoors.

“How it’s going to work is, someone’s going to complain about [people] not wearing masks. We’re going to have to check the cameras to see whether or not they’re wearing masks,” board member Kathy Butler said. “That’s honestly one of the worse parts of my job right now, that I have to go around and be the mask police.”

Butler said she would be fine with alleviating mask requirements if spectators distanced themselves in the stands, but she said she didn’t think fans would do that to a great extent.

“Just because restrictions have been lessened at the state level doesn’t mean we’re ready for them here,” board member Rachel Longbine said.

Butler added that many students might have sick relatives who would be more susceptible to the coronavirus.

“I don’t think nuances are necessary,” she said. “It’s not black and white. Wear a mask. You don’t have it over your nose, you don’t have to be here.”

The board decided that outside groups would still need to wear masks to use the district’s facilities.

This extended to prom. Middle/high school principal Angela Hazelett said she’d been coordinating with other schools to allow for outside guests from said schools to attend, so long as those guests wore masks.

“We’re not going to be able to social distance, that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense [at a dance]. But I think the kids are doing a good job of being careful,” Hazelett said.

While they were open to physical parent-teacher conferences in the gymnasium, as well, many board members expressed that online meetings of that sort proved more efficient for them.

“It’s just so handy to sit at your kitchen table and not have to go anywhere,” board member Kevin Engel said.

The board also decided online education would have to be the way to go in the event of more snow days. Currently, the school has allotted for four. For every additional snow day after their fifth, an extra day of online classes would be required for students to attend later in the year.

For any physical meetings, students would be encouraged not to roam the halls while their parents and teachers talked and, of course, to wear masks.