Masks Now Optional In Central Bucks School District

DOYLESTOWN, PA — Wearing a mask is now optional in the Central Bucks School District, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court opted to return control over mask requirements to individual school districts Friday.

Central Bucks' new school board had voted in its first meeting Dec. 6 to make masks optional for elementary students, in anticipation of the ruling. (This had been the last area of the district's original health and safety plan in which masks were mandated).

The new mask-optional policy is officially in effect for Central Bucks as of Monday.

"Families and staff should report any positive COVID test results to their school nurse, and the district will continue to work in consultation with the Bucks County Department of Health regarding all COVID related matters," Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh wrote to families. "Central Bucks School District will continue to inform families when a confirmed positive case is reported in one of their child’s classrooms, and update our COVID dashboard each week."

The school board also voted Dec. 6 to outsource contact tracing to the Bucks County Department of Health.

"Families are encouraged to consult with their personal medical provider for any specific health related questions," Lucabaugh wrote.

In accordance with an order by the Centers for Disease Control requiring mask-wearing on public transportation, face coverings will still be mandated on school buses.

Pennsylvania's Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam had issued a statewide mask mandate at the start of school this year; the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court then ruled the mask order illegal in November, with the appeals process leading it to the state's supreme court.

Lawyers for the state argued during that hearing that the mandate functions as a "modified quarantine," a measure the state can impose to limit the spread of a communicable disease.

But Republicans countered that Beam did not follow the proper procedural steps in issuing the mandate, and that a public health emergency was no longer in place when the order was issued, rendering it illegal. Still, the order had remained in effect until the supreme court's ruling Friday.

These changes come as Bucks County's percent positivity rate last week was 10.7 percent according to the Bucks County Department of Health. That number has been steadily on the rise over the past two weeks.

The county remains an area of high transmission, according to CDC designations.

Last week, Central Bucks reported 114 positive COVID-19 cases across the District for the period between Nov. 29 and Dec. 5.

Read more about COVID-19 in Central Bucks on the district website.

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