Lower Moreland's Board Of School Directors Will Address Changes To Health & Safety Plan

LOWER MORELAND, PA — The Lower Moreland Township Board of School Directors have announced a special meeting slated for Monday evening to address components of the district's health and safety plan.

The district posted the meeting announcement on its website, saying school board members plan to address aspects of the health and safety plan beginning at 8 p.m. inside the high school auditorium.

The special meeting will also be livestreamed here.

The public will be allowed to comment at the meeting prior to school directors taking any action on agenda items.

The district has not specifically stated whether the main crux of the meeting has to do with the possible return to mandatory universal masking for students and staff at district facilities, but it appears likely that is the reason for the special meeting.

Now that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has placed Montgomery County back into the "high" category for COVID-19 transmission, districts across the county have been reinstating forced masking.

The school district posted a link to its health and safety plan along with Monday's agenda, and the document does state that masks would have to once again be worn in the district if the county were categorized as "high" for COVID-19.

Some other districts have also recently returned to mandatory universal masking for students, staff and visitors, including Cheltenham, Lower Merion and Abington.

Lower Merion, however, quickly rescinded its return to mandatory masking after some public outcry, according to a story on CBS 3 Philly.

A letter posted to the Lower Merion School District website said that the mask requirement would be scrapped a mere day after it had been reinstated.

The district's superintendent wrote in the communication that the district has now decided to make mask-wearing "recommended" and not required, in order to better reflect the action taken by both the CDC and Montgomery County's Office of Public Health.

Superintendent Khalid Mumin wrote on Friday that the MCOPH and CDC actually 'strongly recommend' indoor masking when a community is placed into the high category for COVID-19; neither agency "requires" it.