California health officials are expected to announce on Monday, Feb. 28 new face mask rules for schools that will ease off the word “mandate” and downgrade it to a strong recommendation.
The possible change matches up with health data that shows the latest wave of the pandemic ebbing. It also comes at a time of increased tension in schools.
A growing number of students already are defying mask rules, and some parents have turned out to school board meetings to rail against masks. Conversely, many other parents note that masks have proven an effective tool in slowing the disease and, they wonder, why stop now.
Erin Marshall, a mom in Orange County’s Irvine Unified School District, understands both sides. Her daughter, who is fully vaccinated, has a rare genetic disorder and could die from COVID-19. But the teen also receives speech therapy and, because of that, she needs to see people’s faces when they talk.
“This is a hot mess for me,” Marshall said. “Face masks keep her safe. But it’s an even bigger barrier for her to communicate.
“I’m terrified they’re going to remove the face masks — and I’m relieved they’re going to remove the face masks,” she added. “I feel very conflicted.”
Dr. Mark Ghaly, of the California Health and Human Services agency, indicated earlier this month that on Monday, Feb. 28, after reassessing new data and trends, officials will “give a date when the masking requirement will move to a recommendation.”
On Friday, Los Angeles Unified School Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said he wants the state to offer “a clear and consistent roadmap, so that we can better prepare our school communities and communicate with our families.
“Whether it’s based on vaccination rates, case rates, or something else, we are relying on public health officials to provide clear, consistent metrics so we know when to safely remove the indoor mask requirement and stay in step with other local schools,” Melvoin said.
“As more people in other settings are increasingly allowed to remove their masks, the call for this guidance on when children can remove masks indoors at schools will only grow louder.”
News of the possible announcement was welcomed by Yvonne Juarez, a second-grade Los Angeles Unified teacher who has been teaching online since last fall because she declined the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Face masks should be optional,” said Juarez, co-founder of a small group called Los Angeles Educators and Parents United. “It’s hard to teach with a mask on. And it’s hard for little ones to understand sounds and learn. They depend on seeing your face a lot. It’s also important for them to see your smile.”
Long Beach resident Tanya Schoen has another perspective: her 4-year old learned how to wear a mask over a year ago for her pre-kindergarten class. “I don’t believe it’s too difficult to do…She was 3 years old when she understood why she had to wear a mask.”
“As much as I respect everybody having their freedom to their own beliefs, I also believe in common sense,” Schoen said. “Yes, masks suck. I understand. But we still have a growing virus out there. We don’t feel like playing Russian Roulette with our child’s health and our own. So the recommendation that’s coming is not an option for me or my family, or (for) many of the parents I know.”
Meanwhile, with virus numbers trending downwards, California recently ended a three-month indoor mask mandate for people who are vaccinated. And on Friday, Feb. 25, the Centers for Disease Control relaxed guidelines for mask wearing indoors in many parts of the country.
According to the CDC website, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties were listed as having “medium” community levels of COVID-19, based on hospitalization rates and other factors. Residents in those counties are at lower risk and are advised they could go without masks indoors. But in Los Angeles County, which was listed as having a “high” community level of the virus, the CDC recommends that residents continue to wear the face coverings.
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Health officials also still recommend face coverings for anyone who is at risk, or who has the virus or been exposed to it. Wearing a face covering reduces the chance of transmission, according to health professionals.
In a new poll of nearly 9,000 Californian voters, 61 % said they support mask mandates in K-12 schools, and 55 % support California’s plan to require COVID-19 vaccines for students, according to the survey by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times.
Still, mandates for COVID-19 vaccines, face mask and testing mandates have roiled school communities.
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In the Inland Empire, hundreds of students protested this month in the Corona Unified, Chino Valley Unified, Bonita Unified and Temecula Valley Unified school districts. Many participated in “mask sit-outs.”
In Orange County’s Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, which has seen school board meetings shut down over face mask issues, more than 100 families have signed a letter revoking their consent to any “medical procedures” or “treatments” related to COVID-19, including face masks, vaccines and testing.
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Several other OC districts have also seen protests and students show up to school without a face mask. Many schools are sending students home when they don’t wear a mask, including Orange County’s largest district, Capistrano Unified, according to that district’s spokesman. At Los Alamitos Unified, some 200 students who refuse to wear a face covering are provided independent class work in a supervised setting, either indoors or outdoors, depending on space available and weather conditions, a district spokeswoman wrote in an email.
Some parents complain that there’s no consistency in how the rules are applied, sometimes even within the same district or even the same school.
“The teachers are taking it upon themselves to enforce what they feel comfortable with,” said Yorba Linda resident Kristen Dowdee, whose older elementary-aged children attended school without face masks a couple of times in protest. “In one class, the kids can be completely unmasked and it’s fine. But in another, they have to be completely masked up.”
Face mask opponents often point to the hypocrisy of elected leaders and others who talk about face masks but then flagrantly violate the rules.
“I got really upset after the Super Bowl, looking at all those leaders and stars not wearing masks. It was OK for them to do it. But come Monday morning, my kids have to go to school and wear masks?,” Dowdee said.
Protesters gather outside the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District office to speak out against mask mandates on Tuesday, January 18, 2022. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
School administrators also want to see detailed guidance from the state.
In a Feb. 22 letter, the California School Boards Association asked Gov Newsom that “a specific K-12 exit strategy” be announced Monday.
“Elected school board members are experiencing unprecedented public pressure from the COVID-19-related measures mandated by the state,” the letter states. “Agitation has grown, stoked by the fact that masking restrictions have been softened or lifted in most areas of everyday life, yet remain in full force in California schools.”
Superintendents in Orange County’s 28 school districts issued their own statement earlier this month, asking state officials to delineate the criteria they plan to use for easing school mask requirements and other protocols.
“We believe that safety protocols such as face coverings, while sometimes polarizing, have proven effective in reducing school-based transmission, which in turn allowed our campuses to remain open,” the superintendents wrote.
But those rules “were not intended to be permanent,” they continued. “Students and staff did their part – to extraordinary degrees. Now, we must acknowledge that changing circumstances and clear data trends warrant a re-examination of our approach to school safety, if not a full exit strategy and a return to more normal school operations.”
Ed Sibby, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association, said teachers have been put in a tough spot, having to choose in some cases between following state health guidelines or “following the direction of school boards that have determined on their own that the mask policy should end.”
“We would like for the policies to be clear and coordinated so that teachers aren’t caught in the middle.”
More than two dozen School Boards in California have voted to make mask optional, according to a group called Reopen California Schools. On Wednesday, March 2, the Capistrano Unified School Board may be the next to join those ranks. The board is scheduled to consider a couple of related resolutions: one would encourage mask use but modify the current policy to allow students to stay in class, even without masks; and the other would call the mask mandate “ill advised” and have the district adopt a policy of “non-enforcement.”
Staff writer Linh Tat contributed to this report.
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