Education Week - November 17, 2021 - 14

Some Schools Are Dropping Mask
Mandates. Should Yours?
'We need to
have these
conversations,'
one expert says
By Catherine Gewertz
Few COVID-19 protections have
divided school districts as sharply
as mask mandates. They've triggered
screaming matches, violence,
and death threats. But now, as K-12
schools trudge into a third pandemicweary
year, and case rates are falling,
more districts are dropping mask requirements.
In
just the past few weeks, more
than 80 school districts in 19 states
have ended or eased mask requirements
for students or staff members.
These moves by no means comprise
a tidal wave; they're closer to a rivulet.
As of Nov. 3, only nine of the 100
big districts tracked by the Center on
Reinventing Public Education didn't
require masks. State policy plays a
role: In 17 states, districts are required
to have K-12 mask mandates.
But in the past six weeks, two of
those states-Massachusetts and
Louisiana-have begun letting
schools or districts make masks a
choice under certain circumstances.
Massachusetts, for example, lets
middle and high schools ask for permission
to make masks optional if
80 percent of staff and students are
vaccinated.
In the other 34 states, districts can
go mask-optional, because the state
allows local choice, or because bans
on mask mandates are prohibited
or in legal limbo. In those places,
dozens of districtwide mandates are
disappearing or turning into schoolby-school
decisions.
Experts are divided on the wisdom
of these moves. Some, including
those at the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, caution against
relaxing protections too soon.
" It's premature to lift all your
mask mandates, " said Dr. Tina
Tan, a pediatric infectious disease
expert at Lurie Children's Hospital
in Chicago.
Others argue that it's time, at the
very least, to begin discussing plans
to lift mask requirements.
Joseph Allen, an associate professor
of exposure assessment science,
and director of the Healthy Buildings
program at Harvard University's
T.H. Chan School of Public Health,
argues that lower case rates, and the
impending availability of vaccines
for all school-age groups suggests it's
time for a more nuanced approach to
mask policy.
" We need to have these conversations, "
he said. " We can't keep mask
mandates in place indefinitely as a
solution to this pandemic. "
Districts that are changing their
mask policies are moving away from
all-or-nothing approaches. They're
embracing flexibility, thresholds, and
hyper-localization.
Those that drop mask requirements
often state explicitly that they will reinstate
them-and have done so-if
case rates warrant. Some are setting
clear thresholds, at the school or
district level, at which masks will be
required or optional. And many are
basing their mask decisions on each
school's cases of infection or quarantine
rates, rather than on county or
district-level data.
The Barrow County schools in
Winder, Ga., started the year Aug. 3
without a mask requirement, but
within a few weeks, the Delta variant
fueled so many cases that the
district felt it had to take action. It
began requiring masks in any school
where 1 percent of students were in
isolation with the virus.
So many schools quickly exceeded
that threshold that the district stepped
in again, this time with a temporary
mask mandate effective Sept. 1, said
Ken Greene, an assistant superintendent.
Case rates began falling a few
weeks later, but the district decided not
to reassess until after an early-October
break, when families might travel and
risk contracting the virus. When a postbreak
check showed case rates were
still low, Greene said, Barrow rescinded
its mask mandate, effective Oct. 18.
The district made two additional
changes. It maintained the mask mandate
for staff, since it's found that most
staff members contract the virus from
other adults. And it raised its schoollevel
threshold: Now schools where
2.1 percent of students are isolating
with COVID must require masks.
Barrow wanted to maintain its 1 percent
threshold, Greene said, in part
because only 18 percent of children
10 to 14, and 40 percent of those 15 to
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 17, 2021 | www.edweek.org
19, have been vaccinated. But parent
opposition to mask rules is intense.
" It felt like there might be a mutiny "
if the district didn't at least raise the
school threshold, he said.
Clearly stating mask criteria can
be helpful
Whatever metrics a district decides
to use for its mask policies,
having a framework that lays them
out clearly is important, said Curt
Dietrich, the superintendent in the
North Penn schools, outside Philadelphia.
Last summer, the district
set separate masking thresholds
for its elementary and secondary
schools, based on county case rates
and test positivity. The state later required
all districts to enforce maskwearing.
But if those decisions revert
to the local level, Dietrich says,
North Penn is ready.
" People want to know, what is the
plan? " he said. " They can see it, and
feel assured we're basing it on science
and conversations with local
health leaders. It gives them hope
that somewhere on the horizon, if
the numbers go down, and the state
doesn't require masks, there won't be
a need for masking. "
Dr. David Rubin, the director of
the PolicyLab at the Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia, which has advised
the White House COVID-19
task force and school districts, said
now that COVID-19 vaccines are
available for all school-age groups,
decisions about masking should
revert to local districts. With the
approval Nov. 2 of a vaccine for the
youngest group, ages 5 to 11, maskoptional
decisions " could move
along fairly quickly " in January and
February, he said.
" We can't continue to wait for everyone
to be vaccinated, " Rubin said.
" There has to be an exit strategy. "
Emily Jeter helps her son Eli,
a kindergarten student, get
his mask on before heading
into class in mid-August at
Jenks East Elementary
School in Tulsa, Okla.
The CDC sees continued masking as
a key part of that exit strategy. In a statement
to Education Week, the agency
reiterated previous guidance, which
recommends universal indoor masking
for all teachers, staff, students, and
visitors to K-12 schools. The CDC will
" revisit " its school masking guidance
as child-vaccination rates, transmission
metrics, and other data evolve, agency
spokeswoman Jasmine Reed said. But
she noted that multi-layered protection
is still warranted, since COVID transmission
risk is still classified as " high "
in nearly 75 percent of U.S. counties.
A big question mark: child vaccine
uptake
Large swaths of the school-age
population appear likely to remain unvaccinated.
COVID-19 vaccines have
been widely available for children 12
and older, but fewer than 55 percent
are fully inoculated. A vaccine is now
available for children 5 to 11, but polls
show a large-and growing-segment
of parents of children in that age
group don't plan to get their children
inoculated.
In an October poll by the Kaiser Family
Foundation, 30 parent of parents of
children 5 to 11 said they would " definitely
not " vaccinate their children, up
from 24 percent in September. That
margin grew even more among the parents
of children 12 to 17: The percentage
who said they would " definitely
not " inoculate their children against
COVID-19 rose from 21 percent in September
to 31 percent in October.
The Clintondale schools in Clinton
Township, Mich., recently found
it couldn't manage safely without a
mask requirement. On Oct. 18, the
same day the Barrow County schools
in Georgia dropped its mask mandate,
Clintondale added one. It had begun
school Sept. 7 with masks optional.
" We really felt we were on the back
end of COVID before school started, "
said Superintendent Rodriguez
Broadnax.
But by the third week of school, the
"
It's premature
to lift all your
mask mandates.
DR. TINA TAN
Pediatric infectious disease
expert at Lurie Children's
Hospital in Chicago
Delta variant led the district to quarantine
all 114 students in the 8th grade
after a teacher contracted the virus.
Breakthrough cases started cropping
up among vaccinated teachers. By
mid-October, the board unanimously
enacted a temporary mask mandate,
fearing things could get worse during
Halloween, Thanksgiving and winter
breaks. The district will reassess in
mid-January, before the mandate expires,
Broadnax said.
Nationwide, schools have been repeatedly
ambushed by changes in the
pandemic. This summer, with case
counts plummeting, many schools
abandoned virtual learning, only to
have to scramble weeks later to provide
it again when cases surged.
Shifts like that are just one reason
Tan, of Lurie Children's Hospital,
advises schools to stay vigilant.
With large numbers of adults and
children unvaccinated, and the cold
winter months coming, new surges
are possible, she said. Transmission
risk may be declining, but it's still
considered high in most areas, she
said.
" People let down their guards, and
then we get surprised, " said Tan.
Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - November 17, 2021

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