As more students and staff at Columbiana County’s Crestview School District test positive for COVID 19, members of that system’s school board has ordered a temporary mask mandate beginning Wednesday.

At a special meeting held early Tuesday, the board of education announced that the mask mandate will go into effect on Wednesday until the next board meeting in October when the absenteeism statistics will be reviewed.

According to the school’s COVID-19 Dashboard, there have been 61 positive cases in the schools since mid-August. Two students and three faculty members have been hospitalized. Currently 263 students are quarantined due to close contact with COVID-positive students.

Twenty-four students and two staff members have been reported in the High School; eighteen students and one staff member tested positive in the Middle School, and six students and four members of the Elementary School staff have been confirmed with COVID over the past month.

The district is taking other measures including more wipes in classrooms and wider spacing between students during lunch to stave off an anticipated peak in absences expected over the next six weeks.

Additionally, starting on Wednesday, the district will be opening Quick Med Urgent Care on campus alongside their nurses. 

A PowerPoint presentation at Tuesday's board meeting noted that after full masking was implemented in Stark County schools, quarantines dropped to zero.

Fifty-eight percent of Ohios schools now have a mask mandate.