Central Bucks To Review Mask-Optional Policy After New Guidance

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The Central Bucks school board is set to consider changing its mask-optional policy for the upcoming school year after the Bucks County Health Department issued new guidance urging schools to require face coverings inside.

The board scheduled a special meeting for 6:45 p.m. Wednesday to review the county’s new COVID-19 guidance for schools and decide whether to alter its health and safety plan.

As recently as last week, the health department and its director, David Damsker, were advocating for school districts to adopt mask-optional policies and form their own safety plans amid the ongoing pandemic.

The health department issued a memo Aug. 15 attempting to address criticism of its guidance to schools, saying the recommendations were based on "science, years of public health policy, 18 months of accumulated local experience with the pandemic, and common sense."

Two days later, however, Damsker and the health department issued new guidance calling for Bucks County districts to adopt mask mandates for the start of the new school year, after local hospital representatives voiced concerns about their "limited ability to treat severe pediatric cases of any type."

Masking in schools "is particularly important for students who are unvaccinated, which includes all students under 12," Damsker said, urging all eligible residents "in the strongest possible sense" to get vaccinated.

Damsker has faced recent criticism after newly published emails showed he told a Bucks County school leader to have students' parents not report known coronavirus cases to the school's day care facility.

Kathryn Strouse, director of the Middle Bucks Institute for Technology, emailed Damsker in July, asking him to clarify differences between the county's guidance to schools and that of state and federal health agencies.

"One easy way of handling this is not to have your parents report any COVID to you, any more than they would report influenza to you. That way you won't know," Damsker wrote in response. "If a kid is sick normally, you don't ask why they are sick…."

Day care facilities in Pennsylvania must follow guidelines from the Office of Child Development and Early Learning, which requires them to report known cases to their county health department.

The Central Bucks School District's mask-optional policy has been the source of increasingly intense debate since June, when the school board allowed students to stop wearing masks during the final week of the 2020-21 school year.

“We ask for your support and patience as we review this new guidance, consider its impact and carefully draft revisions for the board’s consideration,” Acting Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh said Thursday in an email to parents.

Democratic State Sen. Steve Santarsiero sent letters this week to each district he represents, including Central Bucks, urging officials to adopt mask mandates at the start of the 2021-22 school year.

Bucks County was recently rated as having a high level of community transmission of the coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend residents in high-transmission areas wear masks indoors when in public, even if they are fully vaccinated.