KU students visit and pass between classes outside of Wescoe Hall and across Jayhawk Boulevard from Strong Hall on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015.

Updated at 2:09 p.m. Wednesday

Students at both KU and at Lawrence public schools are required to wear masks while in classes, but university students appear to be getting a much bigger benefit from wearing those masks.

KU leaders are openly telling even unvaccinated students that they are unlikely to have to miss school due to being a close contact to a fellow classmate who has tested positive, as long as they have worn their masks while sharing a classroom.

But that is not the case at Lawrence public schools. K-12 students at Lawrence schools are sent home to quarantine for at least 10 days if they have been within 6 feet of an infected classmate for at least 10 minutes, even if both students were wearing masks.

Is there some sort of medical difference between university and K-12 students when it comes to the protection provided by masks? Dan Partridge, director of Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, didn’t offer any such differences in an interview with the Journal-World.

But Partridge did confirm that the processes for determining close contacts at KU and at the Lawrence school district are different. At KU, administrators take a hands-off approach in determining whether students or staff need to be deemed close contacts. The task of determining close contacts at KU is handled by Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health and sometimes by medical professionals at the separately run Watkins Student Health Center.

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, however, is taking a much less active role in determining contacts at Lawrence public schools. District officials primarily are making those decisions, Partridge said.

“They take the lead on that,” Partridge said. “When they are uncertain and want to consult with us, we field numerous calls a day on that, but they are taking the lead on that.”

Partridge also said it is his understanding that the school district is holding pretty close to the standard that it has posted on its website related to COVID-19 protocols — that unvaccinated people must quarantine if they have been within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 10 minutes, mask or no mask.

At first glance, it appears the school district’s policy follows closely the guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says people who are fully vaccinated don’t have to quarantine after having close contact with a COVID-positive person, as long as they don’t start exhibiting COVID symptoms. Neither the Lawrence school district nor KU requires symptom-free vaccinated individuals to quarantine. However, the general CDC guidelines don’t say anything about unvaccinated people being able to avoid a quarantine by wearing a mask. From that standpoint, the school district’s policy is consistent with what the CDC has recommended.

But the CDC often defers to local public health officials on certain details of quarantine procedures. Partridge said there is a certain amount of subjectivity that goes into determining when someone should be declared a close contact and be required to quarantine. He said it is difficult to say wearing a mask will always result in an unvaccinated person avoiding a quarantine.

“I would put this under the bucket of trying to take a gray area and trying to turn it into a black and white,” Partridge said of definitive statements about when people would be subject to quarantine.

He said the health department makes a phone call to every positive case in Douglas County and conducts an interview about where they have been, who they have been around, who was wearing masks and several other factors. The totality of that information leads to decisions about who should be deemed a close contact and subject to quarantine, he said.

But Partridge said he doesn’t object to the language KU leaders sent out in last week’s memo, saying it is unlikely that masked students and staff would be deemed a close contact simply by being in the same classroom as an infected person.

“I think the key word there is ‘unlikely,'” Partridge said. “Yeah, it is unlikely. I’m interpreting that it can go either way, but it is unlikely.”

Partridge acknowledged that the health department is getting lots of questions and concerns related to quarantine situations at K-12 schools, particularly Lawrence schools.

“On the university front, it has been fairly quiet and we hope it stays that way,” Partridge said. “Really the pain point right now is K-12 education.”

The Lawrence school district is different from some other school districts in at least one key respect: testing. Lawrence has not adopted one of the more aggressive testing strategies allowed by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

As the Journal-World reported last month, KDHE has approved several testing options that would allow unvaccinated students to avoid quarantine, as long as they can pass a series of COVID tests.

Kansas Reflector has reported that 75 school districts — a minority of the state’s districts — have implemented a version of the approved testing programs, and more are in the process of doing so.

Partridge confirmed that the Eudora public school system is one of the districts using a testing program. It allows unvaccinated students to remain in school even if they have been within 6 feet of someone who tested positive. Those students, however, are required to take a rapid-result test at the school building each day upon arrival for the entire 10- to 14-day period that they otherwise would have been required to quarantine.

Partridge said he was unsure whether the Lawrence school district was considering such a testing program. He said Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health has no objection to schools using one of the KDHE-approved testing programs, but the department has not actively encouraged or discouraged school districts on the testing topic.

“We are trying to let them be the decision-makers on which option they pick,” Partridge said.

There are other options besides testing that some schools are using to reduce the amount of time students must miss school due to quarantine. One option is a “class cohort” system. Such a system essentially allows students who are in a class where a student has tested positive to continue coming to school, as long as they don’t exhibit symptoms. However, those students must go directly to their assigned classroom. They would eat lunch in the classroom, avoid common areas when other students are about and follow other procedures that keep them away from the rest of the school’s population.

“Essentially, they serve their quarantine in their classroom,” Partridge said.

He said he was unsure where the Lawrence district has landed on the issue of using a class cohort system in certain situations — he noted it is easier to implement in elementary schools — but he said district administrators have been reviewing such a system.

District spokeswoman Julie Boyle said administrators were “working through the logistics” associated with a class cohort system. That includes looking at how school buildings would handle arrivals and dismissals, pre-screening, medical check-ins, physical separation, meal service, school activities and several other issues, Boyle said via email.

She also said the district’s nursing facilitator was talking with KDHE about testing strategies that the district could use for students who otherwise would be facing a quarantine situation.

“Our goal is to keep students and staff safe and in school,” Boyle said.