Methacton School District Is Consdering Making Facemasks Optional For Students & Staff

LOWER PROVIDENCE, PA — The Methacton School District is considering repealing its universal mask mandate and instead making facemasks optional for students and staff, the move coming at the recommendation of its pandemic team.

School district officials announced this week that the matter would be taken up during a special meeting of the Board of School Directors on Thursday.

The pandemic team, the district said, recommended that the board change to a mask optional environment for students, staff and visitors in grades 7 through 12 by the end of January 2022 and in kindergarten through sixth grade at the end of February 2022.

The rationale for the recommendation, the district said, involved a number of factors, including:

• Montgomery County health officials plan to release a sliding scale masking recommendation that asks school districts to treat vaccinated and unvaccinated students and staff differently;
• The planned end to the state masking mandate that was originally scheduled to expire on Jan. 17, 2022;
• The fact that adults and students of all ages now have had the opportunity to become vaccinated against COVID-19;
• And the fact that transmission rates are generally on the decline.

The special school board meeting to address the mask issue will take place Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Arcola Intermediate School auditorium. It will also be broadcasted via YouTube.

The announcement about the special meeting was made by Superintendent David Zerbe.

Some area school districts are now revisiting their mask policies for students and staff after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently tossed out a statewide mask mandate that had been issued by the state's acting health secretary.

The high court ruled that Alison Beam did not have the authority to issue the statewide order, which was designed to curb COVID-19 transmission rates in educational settings.

Beam has since tendered her resignation.