ASHLAND, Maine — Following a trend that has continued rapidly in the last few weeks, SAD 32 in Ashland has become the final school in central Aroostook to mandate that all students, staff and visitors wear masks indoors.
SAD 32 superintendent Gehrig Johnson and Ashland Community School principal Joel Hall announced the mandate in a joint memo on Thursday. Like other school districts, they cited Aroostook’s high level of COVID-19 transmission and the lack of vaccine approval for students younger than 12.
The school intends to socially distance students three feet apart in classrooms in order to avoid a quarantine situation if students are considered close contacts of a COVID case.
“We will continue to monitor local case counts and transmission in our schools and reserve the right to return to optional mask wearing in the future,” Johnson and Hall said.
The decision comes days after 10 Ashland students went into quarantine after being exposed to a COVID-positive individual at a school athletic event on Aug. 23. SAD 32 has not reported any more positive cases since that announcement.
As the school year began across Aroostook County, positive cases and quarantined students and staff encouraged school boards and administrators to switch from optional to mandatory masking. Fifty-six percent of Aroostook’s total population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the latest Maine CDC figures.
