Superintendent Will Recommend Mask-Optional Policy to Ludington School Board on Monday

[XLFD]

The Ludington School Board will discuss and reconsider their Safety Mitigation Plan at their meeting on Monday, February 21, 2022, following a recommendation by Superintendent Kyle Corlett to change the current mask mandate to allow for parental/student choice.  The momentum has been growing stronger lately to amend the mitigation plan, which has had only minor changes during the 2021-2022 school year, to allow masking to be optional. 

                       Ludington O-bots team and support staff two weeks before Covid-19 shut down schools in 2020

Just yesterday, the State health department revised its mask guidance for schools. The new guidance takes effect immediately, reflecting improving COVID-19 trends and similar moves from other administrations across the country amid fierce pressure from critics who argue that mask recommendations at schools are unnecessary. 

On Monday, The Lansing State Journal reported on a survey of 20 mid-Michigan schools and compared the case rates of the 16 schools with mask mandates and the 4 without any mandate and stated that it painted a foggy picture.  Possibly, but the school with the lowest case rate was one of the four mask-choice schools, and the average case rate for schools with mask mandates was 22.5% higher than those without (19.6% to 16%).  While such results prove nothing scientifically, they do tend to show that mandating masks at schools around the seat of Michigan's political power appear to assist the spread of Covid-19.  

I shared the latter survey with the school board over an email on Tuesday and shared the recent change of policy by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services at the Board's Finance Committee meeting, consisting of Josh Snyder, Bret Autrey, and Board President Steve Carlson.  The latter two have been half of the quadrumvirate that have kept mask restrictions in place over this year, which requires masks to be worn when Mason County's Covid Test Positivity Rate is over 10%, but they may relent their position given that the MI DHHS has downgraded the mandates.

Superintendent Corlett confirmed at the end of the meeting that he would be recommending making Ludington Schools mask-optional at this coming Monday's board meeting and support the rest of the mitigation plan.   The Ludington Torch encourages the board to choose freedom over fear, and for the public to strongly, but politely, assist your board members to coming to a satisfactory conclusion.

                                                          Ludington spelling bee contestants two years later

In other business at this committee meeting, Corlett revealed that FiveCap Inc. had placed the one and only bid on the Pere Marquette Elementary School at $110,000.  It is unknown what sort of plans the community action agency has with the building, but it may signal a potential move of their main offices from their current Scottville location to this Fourth Ward landmark.  The board will likely vote to sell the property on Monday, being that the bid is $10,000 over the assessed price.

They went over amendments to the year's budget, adding quite a bit due to millions in ESSER funds coming from ARPA, dealt with a variety of bond issues and talked of shifting some staff around.

The committee will recommend joining a class action suit.  In the suit, plaintiffs allege that JUUL engaged in false and deceptive sales, marketing, labeling, and advertising of JUUL e-cigarette devices and JUUL pods and that JUUL specifically targeted young people with its advertising and marketing efforts in order to encourage JUUL use.  The district will incur no costs in joining.

[Willy]

What really stands out is the sadness that's evident in the most recent spelling bee photo. The schools and school board should be ashamed of themselves. Treating children the way they did is criminal.

This is how the picture should look.

[XLFD]

School officials are unclear whether FiveCap Headstart programs will transfer from the new elementary building to the former PM Elementary School, but I believe they won't.  I'm betting that FiveCap is wanting to move their headquarters out of Scottville after they were singled out by Scottville Police Chief (and interim city manager at the time) Matt Murphy.  Murphy went above and beyond to exert authority over this non-profit designed to help the poor and underserved elements in our community, doing everything other than burning a cross on the lawn of this charitable organization ran by a black woman.  

Meanwhile, the old long-abandoned junior high school across the street sported three feet high grass most of the last two summers, so one can readily see why FiveCap would be ready to get the heck away from the crazy officials running Scottville.

[Willy]

Good points X and LL. I was looking at a web page regarding Mason county's population and specifically Ludington. The population change is even worse than I thought. According to the site Ludington has lost 861 residents since 1990, even when Mason county has grown by over 3500 people. A gain of almost 14% for the county and a loss of 10% for Ludington. Permanent residents have been squeezed out by taxes and poor governance. All the wasteful spending on fluff projects while ignoring the basic infrastructure. Who wants to pay taxes for all of this progressive BS. The wasteful spending is obscene.

https://www.citypopulation.de/en/usa/michigan/26105__mason/

[XLFD]

Interesting data, Willy, and it made me wonder why Ludington would lose 5% of its population over the last decade while Scottville gained 12%.  Logically, Scottville should be suffering from their largest tax rates, their highest water/sewer service rates in the county, and their other challenges by losing population to the townships and to better-situated Ludington.  

On thinking why this would happen over the last decade I did a little research and hope to present this with a side-order of analysis in a later article.   Thanks for presenting the germ of an idea.

[Freedom Seeker]

... an thanks for presenting the idea of a germ, X, (in a mask).  

[XLFD]

The safety mitigation plan was changed tonight to allow masks to be optional following discussions by the board and a 7-0 vote.  The changes will immediately go into effect, however, children riding the bus still have to mask up for the ride.  If you haven't already got a mask-exemption for your child, please allow them to enjoy their school years without a face covering starting tomorrow.  Masked or not, teach your child to respect the choices of other parents/kids who decide differently.