This is a continuation of my interview with Dumas Public School Superintendent Kelvin Gragg on Monday, August 16, the first day of the 2021-2022 school year.
“I was expecting a lot of push back on the Dumas Public Schools Mask Mandate,” said Superintendent Kelvin Gragg. “I was at the schools last Monday morning, the first day of school, and kids were coming out with their masks on. I have not had any negative comments to me. I'm pretty sure they are out there, but I've not had any to bring concerns to me.”
“I spoke with one of my Superintendents and good friend at West Memphis and at Marion,” said Mr. Gragg. “I talked to both of them. I don't know if you know, that an 11-year-old West Memphis student died a couple weeks ago. That's my greatest concern, is that we don't do anything and then we have a student in the Dumas District, something happens to them. I don't think we could live with ourselves if something like that took place.”
“At this point, on the first morning of school, we already had 16 on quarantine. Three staff members that tested positive and 13 students,” said Mr. Gragg. “Fortunate for us, doing In-service last week, they were indoors, they were wearing masks as the CDC recommends. Subsequently, we didn't have to quarantine as many staff members because they had masks on and had been vaccinated and were not showing any symptoms.”
“We believe that had we no had masks on, had they chosen not to do that then we would have had some additional problems,” said Mr. Gragg. “I spoke with my good friend at Marion, they had over 1,400 students and staff out on quarantine. He told me after going back and looking at it, they have roughly between 4,500 and 5,000 students. And he told me after looking at it, had they had the mask mandate in place they would have had 106 out verses 1,400.
“Marion was one of the ones that then voted to have a mask mandate,” said Mr. Gragg. “You can tell there are many school districts around the state, not just in any particular area. You have schools in Northwest Arkansas, which are strongly anti-mask, many of those school districts, Central Arkansas, they are implementing a mask mandate. The reason for it, is because we want to successfully go back to onsite instruction. We believe the best way to educate kids is to keep them in school. And the best way to keep them in school is if we social distance when we can, we wash hands, sanitize surfaces, and we wear masks,”
“I've been in a situation here where I've not had to worry about politics,” said Mr. Gragg. “I'm not a politician, I'm a school teacher and in those regards I'm going to do what is best from an educational stand point.”
I asked Mr. Gragg, how the first day of school got underway?
“We had a good start to school,” said Mr. Gragg. “We have 99.5 percent of our staff in place. We have science teacher, an algebra teacher and a special ed teacher coming from the Philippines They will be here the first of September. We just didn't have any qualified applicants. We've had success with our Philippine teachers in the past. So we have those coming. We have a number of Act 12-40 teachers, which were teachers that have a degree, but don't have a teachers license. We work with the State and with those teachers to get them licensed. We had a good week of Pre-school Professional Development. I've spoken with the Principles, we've got everybody in their class.”
