Port Washington Mandates Masks Indoors For Start Of School Year

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — Face masks will be required in all indoor settings for students and staff when they return this fall, Port Washington Superintendent Michael Hynes said.

"We are following the CDC and (American Academy of Pediatrics) guidance that prioritizes in-person instruction and the district will not offer a fully remote virtual learning platform," Dr. Hynes announced at a Board of Education meeting this month. "We want our kids in school. It's incredibly important that we have them physically in school."

Port Washington isn't the only school district on Long Island that's masking up. Garden City's board of education, for instance, voted in favor of an indoor mask mandate. Manhasset, Jericho, and Herricks are requiring face coverings indoors, too.

In addition to the indoor mask mandate, Hynes said students will be spaced three feet apart while they're masked, and six feet apart while they're eating lunch, singing, or playing an instrument. After-school clubs and sports will resume in the fall.

"We will reevaluate what we're saying right now at the end of November," Hynes added. "There were a lot of lessons learned. There were some mistakes that were made last year, for sure, and I'm certainly accountable and I hold myself to a very high standard.

"The things that we have learned, we can certainly apply now moving forward — and one of them is to continue to pivot when we have to and then readdress and reevaluate and then make sure the school community knows why we are doing what we are doing and be very clear with that messaging moving forward."

The district's decision comes amid contentious debates among parents and elected officials over mask mandates. Currently, coronavirus cases are surging across the country — especially in communities with low vaccination rates. According to the latest official data, in Nassau County, the seven-day rolling average for positive cases has steadily climbed from 0.4 percent on July 1 to 3.7 percent on Aug. 18.