At the end of a week that saw a decrease in the number of students and staff who reported testing positive for COVID-19 at Lowndes County School District, Superintendent Sam Allison reported to the school board at Friday's meeting that he does not believe the virus is spreading through classrooms due to the use of plastic dividers between students and a mask mandate at all the schools.
However, those restrictions were not in place in the boardroom, where neither Board President Robert Barksdale nor Board Attorney Jeff Smith wore masks during the public meeting, despite sitting within six feet of other board members, the board secretary and Allison.
Barksdale said he kept his mask lowered while presiding over the public part of Friday's meeting so that meeting attendees could hear him. He said he wore it throughout the lengthy executive session that ended the meeting, during which the public was asked to leave the room so the board could discuss several student and personnel matters.
"I just didn't have one on when I was up there talking, because people can't understand what I say," Barksdale said. "... I wore my mask in and I took my mask off when I was talking. When I was in executive session, I had a mask on, and when I left I had a mask on."
Smith, however, walked into the boardroom before the meeting started wearing a mask. As he walked to the board table, he took it off, saying he "brought this in case (Dispatch reporter) Slim Smith was here."
He then put the mask in his pocket and sat next to Allison throughout the entirety of the public meeting.
Slim Smith covered the school board's Oct. 9 meeting during which Jeff Smith also didn't wear his mask. The Dispatch subsequently criticized Jeff Smith's action with a "thorn" in the Oct. 11 Roses and Thorns section of the opinion page.
Since October, Lowndes County has been added to a list of more than 60 counties in the state under a mask mandate per an executive order by Gov. Tate Reeves, meaning citizens are legally required to wear masks in public.
Cases have been growing in Lowndes County -- which has seen more than 3,000 cases since the start of the pandemic -- and the state, which saw more than 2,000 new cases a day on Dec. 3, Dec. 4 and Wednesday.
Barksdale said "it possibly could" be the board's place to instruct others at public meetings to wear their masks. He said he could not say why Smith or anyone else did not wear a mask.
Other board members present, as well as district personnel and media present, all wore masks.
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December 13, 2020 at 08:52AM
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LCSD board president, attorney leave masks off during school board meeting - The Commercial Dispatch
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