Parley's Park Elementary School. Photo: TownLift

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City School District Superintendent (PCSD) Jill Gildea admitted an error in communication in a statement released on Monday afternoon regarding the mask mandate at Parley’s Park Elementary School (PPES). The Summit County Health Department (SCHD) is now conducting an investigation of the school and its implementation of the mask requirement.

Summit County Health Director Phil Bondurant learned mid-last week that there was widespread confusion surrounding the mask requirement at PPES. At the end of October, the school passed the 2% case threshold, which institutes a two-week mask mandate because of a public health order passed by the county earlier this year.

“PCSD recognizes the County’s Order of Constraint as a valid, legally binding public health order and mask mandate for all PCSD employees and students at Parley’s Park Elementary School. It is the expectation of PCSD that all students and staff will comply with that mandate, subject to those exemptions set forth within the Order itself,” Gildea said in the statement.

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“Understanding that there may be allowable exemptions is where the terminology ‘parental choice’ originated in my conversation with our PPES school principal and it was my error to not slow down and clearly state ‘understanding that there are allowable exemptions in each of our school sites,'” Gildea said.

According to data on the PPES website, 18 cases have been reported in the last 14 days, putting the current daily threshold at 3.03% (data last updated on Monday night).

In September, the Utah Department of Health acknowledged that only 51.3% of cases among 5 to 17-year-olds were actually linked to a school and displayed in an online dashboard.

The SCHD released the following statement on Tuesday morning:

“Following reports of noncompliance received on Thursday, November 4, the Summit County Health Department conducted an on-site inspection of Parley’s Park Elementary the morning of Monday, November, 8. At the time of the inspection, school staff, administration, and students were found to be in compliance with all required face-covering and sanitization protocols outlined in Public Health Order 2021-01.

Health Department staff will continue to evaluate Parley’s Park Elementary School for compliance with the face-covering order while it remains effective. On November 14 we will assess the current cases, using the case definition and data provided by the State database, to determine if the mask order will be extended.”

SCHD has started with 5 to 11-year-old vaccinations this week, you can register here.