Will Wakefield School Drop Mask Mandate? No Easy Answer

WAKEFIELD, MA — The discussion of the end of mandatory school masking in Wakefield is at hand.

The School Committee met Wednesday, just hours after Gov. Charlie Baker's announcement the state would stop mandating masks in schools when the current order expires Feb. 28.

Districts will still be able to require masking, and those which have not relied on the state's order — such as Wakefield — will need to rescind their current orders.

There was no decision on when masks will come off in Wakefield Public Schools, but there was optimism about where the COVID-19 numbers are trending. Superintendent Doug Lyons said numbers are at about half of what they were last week.

Lyons said there are three policies mandating masks in schools: One is from the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, one is from the town's Board of Health and one is the school district's own policy.

Two of those policies are expected to drop soon. The state mandate will be over at the end of the month, and Health Director Anthony Chui told Patch Wednesday the meeting to review the town's indoor mandate has been moved up from March 16 to Feb. 16.

Melrose, where Chui also acts as health director, voted to end its indoor mandate this week.

It was noted Wakefield Memorial High School's vaccination rate is above 80 percent, qualifying it for a waiver application to drop the mask mandate. The middle and elementary schools are closer to 60 percent, meaning they will likely not be eligible for a waiver before the end of the month.

Lyons sounded as if a waiver application for the high school would be on the table, but did not commit either way.

"Likely there will be an interim step is what I am anticipating," he said.

The conversation on when to drop masks was a welcome one, though some warned a decision should not be made independent of health officials.

"It is time for us to be having this very concrete conversation," School Committee member Tom Markham said. "Parents are ready, kids are ready, the teachers are ready."

Markham acknowledged some aren't ready. That's one of the sticking points with the state's timeline: Some think it's just too soon amid still-high COVID-19 numbers, even if they are falling from the omicron peak.

"Our job is to represent all of our students and all of our families," Lyons said. "We've gotten steady feedback where people have let us know like, 'We're ready, we're ready.' So we hear that. We've got other feedback that, you know, I had a call this morning and a parent said, 'Medically my child cannot come out of a mask.'"

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi. Subscribe to Wakefield Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.