MA Intends To Mandate Masks In All K-12 Schools Through September

MASSACHUSETTS — The state is on the verge of revising its coronavirus masking guidance in public schools — at least temporarily — and mandating that all students and staff wear masks indoors to begin the school year this fall regardless of vaccination status.

State Board of Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley said Friday morning that he is asking the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for authority to require all students and staff at public school to wear masks through at least the month of September "to ensure schools fully reopen safely and to provide time for more students and educators to get vaccinated."

The policy would then stay in place for all districts until 80 percent of students and staff are vaccinated.

The commissioner's office said it will revisit the mandate "in the near future" to revise it if public health data warrants it.

"The purpose of the policy is to encourage higher vaccination rates among students and staff and to implement a uniform policy for all schools to begin the year," the commissioner's office said.

"The decision that (Riley's) making, which is basically designed to ensure as clean as opening as you could possibly have and deal with any anxiety that people have as they return to school, and to create some serious incentives for middle and high school kids to get vaccinated, is an appropriate response," Gov. Charlie Baker said at a Friday news conference.

Baker had previously resisted calls for a statewide school mask requirement — citing high vaccination rates and relatively low coronavirus hospitalizations as a reason why local districts should be allowed to make their own decisions on masking for vaccinated students and teachers.

The most recent DESE guidance states that it was strongly recommended that students 12 or younger — who are currently ineligible for vaccination — wear masks indoors, while vaccinated students and staff should have a choice.

"Giving locals the opportunity to own the decisions they make is a big and important issue," Baker said earlier this week. "If you look at what's playing out in other states right now where the state government is taking away the authority for locals to make their own decisions, that's not the right way to play this game.

"It's just not."

But pressure continued to grow from groups that wanted the state guidance to more closely mirror the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention guidance recommending universal indoor masking in K-12 schools, as well as from individual districts concerned that having different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated students would be too difficult to enforce.

"Who is going to be the mask police in the hallways?" Swampscott Superintendent of Schools Pam Angelakis asked during a meeting Wednesday night to discuss a possible indoor school mask mandate in that town. "We have some very tall sixth graders and some very small eighth graders. I don't think our leaders want to be running through the hallways checking for masks.

"We're not in the carding business. We're in the education business."

The new mask mandate will apply indoors and to children 5 and older and will have exemptions for those who cannot wear a mask because of medical or behavioral reasons.

"The vaccination rates among young people in Massachusetts are among the highest in the nation, with 65 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds vaccinated, but we still need to do more to make sure our young people and educators are protected from COVID-19," Education Secretary James Peyser said. "Instituting universal masking mandates to further encourage vaccination rates among everyone in our schools is one measure we can take now."

Baker confirmed the vaccine benchmarks are a way to push those who are not vaccinated to do so for the benefit of everyone in a particular school district.

"I really want to see everyone get vaccinated," Baker said Friday. "It really is the only way out of this.

"People are tired of the pandemic. I completely get and understand that. It's been a really long, rough, tough period filled with all kinds of awful things. But one thing that's abundantly clear at this point is the way out of this — most fundamentally — is to get everybody vaccinated."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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