ADAMS TWP — Mars Area School District will begin the school year Wednesday, Aug. 24, with as close to pre-COVID-19 policies as possible after school board members approved changes to the district’s health and safety plan at a special board meeting Tuesday.

Following recommendations from Superintendent Mark Gross and the district’s health and safety committee, the district has removed most provisions of its health and safety plan, including mandatory quarantines for close contacts, any form of contact tracing and all social distancing requirements.

The move is in response to Aug. 11 changes to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations, which also rolled back much of the advice for COVID-19 prevention, including the 6-foot rule of social distancing.

“If we’re given mandates, certainly, we will follow those mandates, but right now, there are no mandates,” Gross said. “What I’m recommending, and the committee is recommending, is that we go to pre-COVID protocols, that COVID is treated just like any other illness — If you’re ill, you stay home; If you’re healthy, you come; if you miss school, you can make that work up. We’re not going to quarantine students any longer.”

Students who are sick with any illness no longer will have access to Live Stream Interactive (LSI), the district’s livestreaming remote platform, which previously was used by students who were quarantining. They instead will make up their work when they return to school.

Families will not need to send proof of testing negative or positive of COVID-19 to the school any longer, though Gross emphasized that any individual who is sick should remain home, “as with any other illness.”

The district will no longer track weekly levels COVID-19 positive cases or release them to the public on its website, as the state of Pennsylvania no longer requires those numbers to be submitted, Gross said.

“There’s a whole lot of process that involves (administration) in doing that, so I recommended to the committee that we discontinue basically all things COVID,” Gross said. “We’re not going to continue to keep that chart, and we are not going to make notifications regarding positive COVID cases. There’s no mandates. We’re treating this like any other illness — we aren’t reporting every child a time has stomach flu or any other type of illness.”

The board also approved a raise for paraprofessionals who are employed as long-term substitutes for the district. They will now be paid $120 per day immediately, instead of being paid $110 a day for the first 30 days and then being raised to $120 per day.

Business manager Debbie Brandstetter said the policy will help get district paraprofessionals into substitute roles.

“It encourages them to (work as substitutes),” she said. “They are already our employees, and that also gets them teaching. If a teaching position comes up, that gives them an opportunity to hopefully move into a teaching position.”

The district has 20 unfilled paraprofessional positions, she said.

If a paraprofessional working as a long-term substitute remains in the position for more than 60 workdays, they can be paid at 90% of a bachelor step 1 salary, like a teacher would receive. On a daily basis, this is approximately $231 per day, Brandstetter said. The pay is also retroactive from when they started.