In a letter to parents, staff and families of Oak Park-River Forest High School, Superintendent Greg Johnson announced Monday night that all athletics, activities and clubs would resume as normal after concerns about a recent spike in COVID-19 cases.

       “I am pleased to let you know that today students did an excellent job complying with the new mitigations that we were required to implement,” Johnson wrote in the statement.

       Under the new measures each person in the school must wear a K95 or surgical mask, according to the letter. Masks will be available in the school for students who do not have one. Students must also have a second round of saliva testing on Thursday. Lastly, students will be required to spread out more during their lunch period.

       The letter ended with Johnson thanking the students, teachers and staff for their efforts to help students return to sports and activities.

       Johnson and Oak Park Public Health Director Theresa Chapple-McGruder did not return requests for comment Monday.

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       But the move by Chapple-McGruder to recommend pausing the high school’s extracurricular activities amid a recent increase in COVID-19 cases appears to be an outlier, with Cook County Department of Public Health officials saying Monday that the health department “is not considering stopping extracurricular activities at any school at this time.”

       Students leave Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park at the end of the school day on Dec. 6, 2021. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

       “We work closely with school officials in order to recommend mitigation measures and appropriate guidance,” said Dr. Kiran Joshi, co-lead and senior medical officer for Cook County Department of Public Health.

       “This is done on a case-by-case basis and is dependent on our analysis of a specific outbreak and its context,” Joshi added.

       The school’s announcement that all clubs, athletics and extracurricular activities would be canceled for the remainder of the semester sparked protests from parents and students Saturday. The school backtracked on its plans the following day, saying in a letter to parents that a final decision would depend on how well students adhered to stepped-up coronavirus safety measures.

       A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health said Monday that the Oak Park Department of Public Health “did reach out to IDPH about a pause on extracurricular activities at Oak Park-River Forest High School.”

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       “Decisions about taking an adaptive pause in response to an outbreak should be made in consultation with the local health department,” IDPH spokesperson Melaney Arnold said, adding that IDPH officials “discussed the options.”

       “Schools and local health departments should consider vaccination levels, number of students in quarantine, ability of the local health department and school to effectively contact trace, adherence to all layers of mitigations — in particular exclusion, isolation, universal masking, and testing — and availability of staff to conduct in-person learning,” Arnold said.

       In a Sunday parent letter, Johnson said he and Chapple-McGruder “need everyone in our school to follow” three mitigation strategies and “to see a high level of compliance on Monday before we can determine whether we can safely resume activities on Tuesday.”

       Among the new, heightened COVID-19 guidelines is a requirement that “every person in the building must wear a high-quality mask,” Johnson said, adding that Chapple-McGruder “has provided the district with masks to distribute to all students and employees.”

       Johnson said while the high school originally planned on distributing N95 masks, the health department is supplying KN95s “which do not require special fitting.”

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       The masks, which the teens are being asked to save and reuse, would be available to students entering the school Monday morning, and surgical masks are also acceptable, Johnson said.

       In addition, Johnson said “as many students as possible” need to participate in voluntary saliva testing, which was offered in collaboration with the high school’s Physical Education teachers, who were expected to conduct the screenings during all PE classes Monday.

       “I am so grateful to our PE teachers for demonstrating in action their compassion for our students and their commitment to students’ wellness by getting them back to doing the things they love,” Johnson said, applauding “the community volunteers who have agreed to come into the school throughout this next week to collect saliva samples and help make this mitigation possible.”

       Students were also asked to “be more spread out during lunch” in order to increase social distancing, and officials are temporarily allowing all students in all grades to spend their lunch hour off-campus for the next two weeks, Johnson said.

       A supporter of strong COVID-19 precautions, Chapple-McGruder recently launched a program that vaccinated about 2,500 children ages 5 to 11 with their first doses of the pediatric vaccine and is among those slated to speak at an American Federation of Teachers Town Hall meeting on school safety this week.

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       She is quoted in a recent AFT publication as saying, “You can have a low overall positivity rate and it still be a place where you don’t want to open schools because it will further the health disparities and minority children will be at greater risk.”

       The Oak Park village board voted last month to reinstate the COVID-19 emergency powers belonging to Chapple-McGruder as part of the governor’s pandemic emergency order after those powers had recently lapsed. Numerous speakers expressed support for Chapple-McGruder at a Nov. 15 meeting and said she had allegedly suffered harassment from community members.

       “We can’t ignore the reports of her being harassed,” Trustee Susan Buchanan said at the time. “This is brand-new news that we have a village staff (member) that is being harassed by residents, including showing up at her house, which is infuriating and totally, completely unacceptable. People need to stay away from the homes and the children of our public servants, period.”

       kcullotta@chicagotribune.com

       Twitter @kcullotta

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