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Date: 7/12/2023
LUDLOW — After not voting on the controversial library book policy on June 13, the School Committee discussed at its June 27 meeting another proposed policy change — this one dealing with the wearing of masks in school.
According to School Committee Chair Jeffrey Laing, School Committee member Joao Dias brought up updating the mask policy based on new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
“It was formerly, students had to wear masks in all schools and then we revised our policy to where they had to wear masks inside the nurses office. Now the next revision would be that it would no longer be required because it is no longer required in hospitals, no longer required at any clinics so we would like to update our policy to show that,” Laing said.
The CDC recently said that healthcare workers are no longer required to wear masks while working and to use a risk-based assessment, stakeholder input and local metrics to determine how and when to require universal masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission.
The CDC guidelines also state that the universal masking guidelines are no longer tied to its community transmission metric after the COVID-19 public health emergency ended on May 11, according to the agency.
Gov. Maura Healey then decided to lift the state’s mask mandate for medical settings and most Massachusetts hospitals lifted the requirements that all patients, visitors and employees must wear face masks.
During discussion, Dias said he would have liked to see another change to the policy.
The current policy states that any individual who wishes to wear a mask is still allowed to but there are two circumstances where an individual must wear a mask.
The two circumstances are in school health offices, which was a state requirement, and upon return to school after a five-day isolation period after testing positive for COVID-19 with the mask being required for five days except when drinking, eating or being outdoors.
Dias said, “When I was reviewing this, I was kind of surprised that we were just getting rid of the ‘in school health offices.’ My vision of what we were going to be discussing was eliminating the policy in its entirety and if the occasion every comes up and there is an issue whether it be a pandemic where masks make sense then we would take it up at that point.”
Dias added, “I am not really sure why we are holding on to any part of the mask policy.”
Superintendent Frank Tiano said that the administration is only asking to remove one of the requirements based on state law.
He said, “As we work with our health care coordinator and legal compliance officer, you see what is stricken out in the recommendation in the school health offices because that is what has been lifted by law or regulation. What is still a requirement for our students is those who return to school after a five day isolation period after testing positive, is to wear a mask for an additional five days. For us, that’s a regulation that we are required to follow.”
Tiano added that once the state removes the second regulation about wearing masks after the five day isolation period, then the school department will propose removing it from its policy as well.
The regulation comes from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website which also refers to mass.gov when talking about wearing masks after a student’s isolation period.
Tiano said he will doublecheck to find out for sure if the wearing a mask after isolation is a law or recommendation from DESE to determine if they should get rid of both regulations in Ludlow Public Schools.
The June 27 School Committee meeting marked the discussion phase of the policy process, and the vote will take place at the next School Committee meeting.