With the state’s guidance for wearing masks in schools set to end later this month, school leaders are once again considering whether masks are necessary for their local communities.
Earlier this week, Gov. Phil Scott announced Vermont’s universal mask recommendation for public and independent schools will end on Feb. 28.
The recommendation, which has been in place since last August, was intended to be a temporary measure until schools reached a minimum vaccination rate of 80%. However, as the highly transmissible delta and omicron variants of COVID-19 surged in recent months, the recommendation was extended multiple times.
While not a mandate, all school districts and supervisory unions around the state — with the exception of Canaan School District — followed the guidance.
Now, as omicron has begun to subside, the state is advising local school officials to consider lifting mask requirements in schools that have reached the 80% vaccination threshold.
“We need our schools to be able to focus all of their energies on their customary work of meeting the educational needs of our students rather (than) spending the better part of the school day attending to the implementation of public health measures,” Education Secretary Dan French said during the governor’s weekly press conference Tuesday. “The work of our schools has never been more critical. No longer recommending masks in highly vaccinated schools is an important step towards shifting our focus on the needed recovery work in education.”
Masks will still be required on school buses, per federal regulations.
The change in guidance has produced a mixed bag of responses from school superintendents, with some ready to drop the requirement while others take a wait-and-see approach.
Libby Bonesteel, superintendent of Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools, said masks will be optional when schools reopen after winter break.
She reported all three Montpelier schools have vaccination rates around 90%. Roxbury Village School is sitting at 66%.
But while masks won’t be required, Bonesteel said she’s still encouraging students to wear them.
“I highly recommended to my community that kids still wear masks, although we can’t mandate it. We have no real enforcement mechanism to mandate it once the state has lifted their recommendations,” she said.
Students in the Slate Valley Unified School District in Rutland County will also be able to forego masks after break, if they choose.
Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell said the district will be lifting the requirement despite none of its six schools having met the 80% threshold.
Fair Haven Union High School has a vaccination rate of 71%, according to Olsen-Farrell. The rest of the schools range between 39% and 64%.
Nonetheless, Olsen-Farrell said the time has come to make masks optional, stating, “the benefits of unmasking outweigh the risks.”
She called the 80% figure held up by the state, “a totally arbitrary number” that she noted was not being used nationally.
“We’re in a place of personal responsibility,” she said. “COVID is not going away. So we’re going to have to learn to coexist with COVID and navigate that.”
Bill Olsen, superintendent of Rutland City Public Schools, also scrutinized the 80% threshold, which he said no city schools have reached.
Moreover, he wondered why consideration would not be given to the percentage of students who have already contracted the virus.
“I am a believer in the effectiveness of masks throughout this pandemic, but it appears like the situation has evolved enough so that we could move to a mask-optional approach,” he wrote in an email.
Olsen, however, said the district was in the midst of discussing next steps and had not made a final decision.
“So we are hoping to hear more (from the state) as we want to be aligned with state health guidance,” he wrote. “But we do worry about compliance in buildings if there is a diversity of approaches to this across the state.”
Likewise, no schools in the Greater Rutland County Supervisory Union have reached 80%, according to Superintendent Chris Sell, who said he will continue to follow the state’s recommendation for hitting that number.
He added the GRCSU School Board will hold a special meeting Feb. 24 to review masking policies moving forward.
The Mill River School Board is taking a similar approach, said interim Superintendent Brian Hill.
He said the board voted this week to continue to follow the state’s 80% recommendation, as well as adopt any new updates that may be issued.
Hill added that the board was also interested to see if cases of COVID surge after next week’s break.
Indeed, the potential for a spike following winter break is a factor in how some school leaders are making their decisions.
Jeanne Collins, superintendent of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, said she is keeping masks in place for now.
She said no RNESU schools have reached 80%.
“I am going to cautiously move on this, and at least give it a couple of weeks after break to see if another surge occurs before making any changes,” she wrote in an email.
Barre Unified Union School District Superintendent Chris Hennessey said in a message to families that masking requirements will be kept in place at least through March 11.
He noted that the district has seen its biggest spikes in cases following vacation weeks.
“At that point, we will have a much better idea on the number of Covid (sic) cases impacting our school community,” Hennessey wrote.
He reported vaccination rates at BUUSD schools ranged from 60% to 77%.
“I am cautiously optimistic that masking will be optional for all students sooner rather than later, but until then we will be following the 80% guidance,” he stated.
The Harwood Unified Union School District will also keep masks in place while indoors until March 11, according to a message to families from Superintendent Brigid Nease.
Nease reported that five of the district’s eight schools had vaccination rates of 80% or higher.
She stated that keeping schools open was a “top priority,” and being able to review case counts after break before removing mask requirements will prevent any additional disruptions to learning and student activities.
“Waiting 8 more student days, after wearing masks for 2+ years, seems prudent and a reasonable compromise to be sure of this very important decision,” she wrote.
In a Friday email, Agency of Education spokesperson Ted Fisher reported the AOE and state health department are in the process of determining school vaccination rates using Immunization Registry data and school enrollment data.
“We are still working to ensure accurate reporting of these data. We hope to have that available soon,” he wrote.
Regarding the 80% threshold, Fisher noted it was first issued in the agency’s August 2021 advisory memo on prevention and mitigation recommendations for the opening of schools.
Ben Truman, a representative of the Vermont Department of Health elaborated in a subsequent email, “The 80% threshold is part of a greater strategy that incorporates case trends, hospital trends, modeling projections, etc.”
He said “80% was chosen as a reasonable threshold for providing a high level of protection in school communities.”
Truman added that schools not at the threshold are not getting penalized, stating, “they will, of course, get to do away with masks, just not as quickly as the schools at the 80% point, who knew of this standard since August and were incentivized by it.”
jim.sabataso @rutlandherald.com
