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Date: 2/22/2022
WESTHAMPTON – Following suit with new state regulations, the Hampshire Regional School Committee voted on Feb. 14 to relinquish its mask mandate at the end of the month.
On Feb. 9, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced the state’s mask mandate for school districts will expire on Feb. 28, as planned. The Hampshire Regional School District also reached an 80 percent vaccination rate among students and staff, the threshold at which districts could apply to relax masking requirements under the state’s previous guidance.
Committee member Thomas Cleary made the motion to end Hampshire Regional School District’s mask mandate when DESE’s mandate expires on Feb. 28.
The School Committee voted 10-2 in favor of the measure.
The discussion that began on Feb. 7 and continued to Feb. 14 revealed the deep split in the school community. The virus is still a dominant fear in some, while others saw the injuries to the mental health of children as the most pressing concern.
“For every student who’s excited to get the mask off, we have a student who is nervous about taking them off,” said Margaret Larson, School Committee chair. “We do know there’s more anxiety for students and some need more time to process the change.”
School nurse Stephanie Faas, conversely, said, “I would strongly support the removal of the mask mandate when the state mandate ends on Feb. 28 … The longer we continue with masks the harder it will be to stop. For some, it will be a hard change [but] I worry about, more so, the social emotional learning that isn’t happening. “
Another wave of infections also worried committee members.
“I think the biggest concern was that if we drop the mask mandate on the 28th, there’s no putting it back in the box. It’ll be much tougher to get kids back into a mask, no matter how important we think it is,” said Sarah Buckley, president of the Hampshire Regional Educational Association.
Committee members voiced the need for cautious steps, especially considering a school break this year falls on Feb. 21 to 25. Families may loosen up, mingle and party, and risk new exposures to the virus. Discounting those fears, Heather Pellegrini, a Southampton member of the committee, spoke in favor of dropping the mask mandate.
“Where is the parent input? Where is the student input on masking? It’s a gaping hole in this conversation,” Pellegrini said. “We have one positive [diagnosis]. We had a goal, we met the goal. We should give these kids their lives back.”
As those in favor of ending the mandate spoke to the hopes of students and parents, Larson registered school employees’ worries over ending the mandates.
“It is pretty clear there are some people … who want caution, to avoid major disruptions to our school,” Larson said. “Other districts, they’re not planning to drop their mask mandates, no matter what DESE does … [but] the people against [dropping the mandates] had reasons that were pertinent to consider.”
A recent survey drew a response from seven non-union and 70 unionized employees in the district, which were evaluated by the Safety Committee. According to Buckley, 38 percent of staff want the mandate to end with DESE’s mandate on Feb. 28. Fourteen percent wanted the mask mandate to remain for the rest of the year. Fully 48 percent said they would prefer if the mandate ends two to four weeks after the February break, showing a concern that families will gather and facilitate spread of the virus.
“There really is no one position from the union. We are somewhat divided in our opinions,” Buckley said.
The survey reflects some of the differences between school employees and families. Almost half of surveyed employees wanted the mandate to remain into the middle or end of March.
Almost 97 percent of all employees were vaccinated. The average vaccination rate among all students is about 78 percent, with the lowest rate of about 73 percent among eighth graders. About half wanted the mandate to end at the close of February.
Susan Strata said, “When households come together around the holidays, that’s when the surges happen.” She commented that DESE seems to be putting masking mandates under the purview of school committees so that state officials are not associated with unpopular decisions. “It sounded to me, from that survey, that well over half of the teachers aren’t ready to give up that mask mandate.” She added that a third of families don’t want to drop the mask mandates either.
The conversation covered protective equipment the district may currently distribute to the community. Lauren Hotz, principal at Hampshire Regional High School, said the district has cartons of face masks in case of another wave, or a personal preference by community members to mask up.
“We would put something out to families,” Hotz said. “If they wanted to access them, we would have some way to get that option out there to them.”
Tanya Kraus, who spoke at the Feb. 7 committee meeting, voiced the consensus.
“For two years now they’ve gone to school, putting a mask on their face, and to me that’s the biggest distraction they could have,” Kraus said. “When is this going to end? We need to learn how to get on with our lives … We can’t continue to live in fear like this.”