New Hope-Solebury, Pennsbury School Districts Mandate Masking

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — In public meetings Thursday night, the school boards of both Pennsbury and New Hope-Solebury approved proposed revisions to their health and safety plans that will mandate indoor mask wearing.

Both of these school districts had considered mandatory masking as cases rose in Bucks County over the past weeks. Initially, all Bucks County schools were mask-optional in their plans for the 2021-22 school year; now, Pennsbury and New Hope-Solebury will require that masks be worn indoors. The revised health and safety plans for both New Hope-Solebury and Pennsbury are detailed online.

Charles W. Lentz, superintendent of New Hope-Solebury schools, wrote to parents on Aug. 12 with new recommendations from the district Health and Safety Committee which included masking in schools and on school buses, as well as reporting of COVID-19 cases in the district.

"Like all of you, I hoped that by this time, the pandemic would be behind us and we would be returning to school with a greater degree of normalcy," Lentz wrote. "Regrettably, we are seeing a resurgence of the COVID-19 virus driven by the delta variant."

Bucks County recently moved from "substantial" to "high" transmission status as defined by the Centers for Disease Control. The county has 112.85 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data; numbers over 100 cases per 100,000 merit a "high" designation.

For several weeks, Bucks has fallen under an umbrella of regions where the CDC encourages indoor masking. On Tuesday, Bucks County Health Department Director David Damsker revised previous guidance for schools and said the health department would recommend that school districts mandate wearing masks indoors.

"As our hospitals must refer all serious cases to pediatric specialty hospitals in the region, many of those same specialty pediatric hospitals are already operating at close to capacity because of non-COVID illnesses and staffing issues," he wrote. "While our COVID-19 cases among school-aged children remain very low, hospitals are growing concerned that any pediatric COVID-19 cases could stress the system. Because of this, hospitals in Bucks County have recommended that schools begin the fall semester with a mask requirement."

This guidance is partially informed by the fact that children under 12 cannot be vaccinated.

Pennsbury's school board meeting on Thursday, the first for new Superintendent Thomas Smith, was packed and included an overflow room. For much of public comment, parents protested the new masking policy.

Both school districts have made clear that policies will be reevaluated monthly, with any changes dependent on public health data and guidance from the CDC and county health department, among other bodies. The New Hope-Solebury School District's initial timeline for the policy is through the first marking period, though revision is possible.

Students will return to New Hope-Solebury classrooms on Sep. 1 and to Pennsbury schools on Aug. 31, with students in some grade levels returning on Aug. 30.

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