Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/21/2022
BELCHERTOWN - After the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced that the current mask mandate in public schools is set to end on Feb. 28, the Belchertown School Committee voted during its Feb. 15 meeting to lift the mandate as early as March 14, but only if the town lifts its current indoor mask mandate.
Prior to the committee’s official discussion and vote, members of the public were overwhelmingly in favor of ending the mask mandate when the statewide mandate is set to end on Feb. 28.
Once officially lifted in schools, School Committee Chair Heidi Gutekenst said masks would still be required in some situations.
“It is not 100 percent mask removal, masks will still need to be worn on the school buses, masks will still need to be worn in the nurse’s office because that is considered a medical facility, children need to wear their masks on days six through 10 after an infection and children can still choose to wear masks,” she said.
Regardless of the committee’s decision, Gutekenst said masks may still be required depending on the Board of Health’s discussion about the current town-wide indoor mask mandate that does not have an end date.
“As long as the town has an indoor mask order, we have to follow that because we are considered an indoor building in the town. I asked if they would consider moving their meeting up and they will; they will have their meeting on Feb. 24, so we can see how they are going to do,” she said. “If there is a town-wide order, we have to follow it, if the town rescinds their order and we keep it, it is on us.”
Gutekenst suggested updating the mask policy to include provisions that would allow it to end when Belchertown lifts the town-wide one.
“Right now, our policy say we adhere to federal guidelines, but we could make it say we adhere to local, state and federal guidelines. If and when Belchertown removes it, it still applies to us,” she said. “If they choose to get rid of it, then ours takes effect whatever date they remove it,” she said.
In a recent survey sent out to staff by the Belchertown Education Association (BEA), Superintendent Brian Cameron said the majority of surveyed staff were in favor of lifting the mandate.
“The BEA sent out a survey to staff and 57 percent said they agreed with lifting the mask mandate while 43 percent were against removing the mandate,” he said.
After the COVID-19 spike following the holidays, the district’s School Nurse Leader Phyllis DuComb said cases are starting to come down.
“Our numbers have been going down steadily, they rose up very quickly, but they are slowly coming down. The number of positive pools we have per week is also coming down, but we still are getting positive cases. We have over 900 students taking at home tests and over 200 staff taking at home tests,” she said.
DuComb also provided the current vaccination rate for all students.
“About 66 percent of all students are vaccinated, at the last vaccine clinic we had, we had 38 students, however about one third of those were there for their booster,” she said.
The committee unanimously agreed to end the mask mandate in school as early as March 14, depending on the Board of Health’s decision at its Feb. 24 meeting.
The Belchertown School Committee next meets on March 1 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the March 10 edition of The Reminder.