Cape Girardeau School District schools began requiring masks today.

The decision to change the district's mask requirement came during a specially called board meeting Tuesday night. School began Aug. 25, and already eight of the district's 10 schools average-daily attendance dipped at or below 90% by Tuesday, according to superintendent Neil Glass. Typical attendance during a normal year would be 93%.

The board's re-entry plan made before school began used attendance as a benchmark for when extra safety precautions needed to be made.

"If our enrollment fell below 90% in average-daily attendance, it would trigger a mask mandate," Glass said. "Well, last Friday we hit that in two of our buildings."

Glass said 306 students have been quarantined as of Tuesday night. Twenty-eight of the district's 4,475 students currently have COVID-19.

Board president Kyle McDonald said the numbers surprised the board.

"I thought we would eventually get there, but I thought it would be much further down the line and not in the first week of school," McDonald said.

The board's original plan stated attendance would have to reach at or below 90% for five consecutive days before the board reconsidered a mask requirement.

Instead of waiting until Thursday to reconsider, the board decided it would begin requiring masks today.

"Unfortunately, we've got 100 students that are quarantined each day due to exposures outside of school or in school," McDonald said. "By allowing us to put the mask mandate in tomorrow, we're probably keeping 200 additional students in place."

Glass said contact tracing and notifying parents of quarantines has absorbed the majority of central office administrators' time. All building administrators are working overtime to do contact tracing, he said.

Parent Christopher Snider received a call Monday that his 9-year-old son at Clippard Elementary was exposed to the virus while at school. He is currently at home in quarantine.

Snider told the board he couldn't have been more proud of Cape Girardeau schools last year when the district required masks. The Cape Girardeau School District ended its mask mandate May 3.

This year, so far, has not been nearly as good as the last, Snider said.

Christopher Snider, a parent of two children in the district, speaks about wanting to bring back a mask mandate during Tuesday's special school board meeting at the Cape Girardeau School District Central Administrative Office.Sarah Yenesel

"I would like to see our kids stay in school as I don't doubt every one of you would," Snider told the board. "We don't know what works outside of our district, but we do know what works here because it worked last year. We kindly suggest that we go back to a mask mandate."

Michael Mills' son had been in school for two days when Mills received a call from him Friday afternoon. His son's classmate at Cape Girardeau Central High School had contracted COVID-19, and Mills had to pick him up from school so he could quarantine.

"I feel they [children] may be the ones who come out the biggest losers in the pandemic if we don't collectively decide to stop the spread of this virus by wearing masks and getting the vaccine," Mills said.

Effective immediately after the meeting Tuesday night, masks will be required of all students, staff members and visitors to Cape Girardeau School District schools.

The district regularly posts COVID-19 cases numbers of students and staff on its website: www.capetigers.com/c_o_v_i_d-19_safety.

The Southeast Missourian reached out to six area schools to gage the virus' impact in each. The schools' totals are as follows:

• Cape Girardeau School District

Positive students: 28

Total students: 4,475

Positive staff: four

Total staff: 466 (according to the Missouri Department of Education)

• Jackson School District

Positive students: 17

Quarantined students: 120

Total students throughout district: 5,728

Positive staff: two

Quarantined staff: four

Total staff throughout district: 876

• Notre Dame Regional High School

Positive students: two

Quarantined students: one

Total students: 440

Positive staff: zero

Quarantined staff: one

Total staff: 54

• Saxony Lutheran High School

Positive students: zero

Quarantined students: zero

Total students: 224

Positive staff: zero

Quarantined staff: zero

Total staff: 30

• Scott City School District

Positive students: five

Quarantined students: 67

Total students: 863

Positive staff: one

Quarantined staff: one

Total staff: 107

• St. Mary Cathedral School

Positive students: five

Students in quarantine: 27

Total Students: 146

Positive staff: one

Quarantined staff: zero

Total staff: 25