Majority of NC school districts have dropped mask mandates. And more may follow soon.
School face mask mandates are falling across North Carolina, with Republican state lawmakers planning to let families opt out in the districts that don’t make them optional.
At least 25 school boards have voted to end mask mandates since state health officials announced last week they’re easing COVID-19 contact tracing and quarantine requirements for schools. For the first time since the pandemic started, a majority of North Carolina school districts don’t require face masks.
“We need to keep an eye on if there are new variants, if numbers start to rise again,” New Hanover County school board member Judy Justice said before the board voted Wednesday to end the district’s mask mandate. “But in the meantime, we need to go back to a normal.”
State lawmakers passed legislation on Thursday that would allow families to opt out of school mask requirements.
“Let me be clear: It’s parents, not politicians who should be making these decisions for their children,” House Speaker Tim Moore said in a news release Wednesday. “As other states across the country lift mask mandates and restrictions, North Carolina’s children will not be left behind.”
But Dr. Danny Benjamin, co-chair of the ABC Science Collaborative, says school leaders should not rush into a decision on ending mask requirements. The ABC Science Collaborative was formed by Duke University to help advise schools on how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“School districts that are considering this right now have the time to take a deep breath and wait a few weeks to see what unwinds as other school districts remove some of these mitigation strategies,” Benjamin said in an interview Tuesday.
More districts making masks optional
Unlike last school year, there’s no statewide school mask mandate in North Carolina now. School districts and charter schools decide on their own whether to require masks. School boards are required by state lawmakers to hold monthly mask votes.
The number of school districts requiring masks has fluctuated throughout the school year, rising during the delta and omicron variants of COVID-19. But until recently, it’s always been a clear majority of districts that mandated face coverings.
Things began to change last week when the state Department of Health and Human Services revised the N.C. Strong Schools Toolkit to say that schools no longer have to do contact tracing for COVID-19.
DHHS also revised quarantine requirements to say students and school employees who’ve been exposed to COVID-19 no longer have to quarantine unless they tested positive or are showing symptoms.
On Thursday, DHHS changed its recommendations to say that schools should consider making face masks optional starting March 7. Gov. Roy Cooper also announced Thursday he’s encouraging schools to end mask mandates.
Now, 64 of the state’s 115 school districts are mask optional, according to news reports and a spreadsheet maintained by the N.C. School Boards Association. These districts represent 44% of the state’s K-12 public school population, according to an analysis by The News & Observer.
The 51 districts that require masks represent 47% of the state’s students. The remaining 9% of students are mainly in charter schools, where it’s uncertain how many require masks.
Lobbying to end mask mandate
The recent elimination of school mask mandates in several states and the growing number of North Carolina districts that are going mask optional have emboldened some parents and activists.
Around 100 people rallied outside Tuesday’s Wake County school board meeting to urge that a special meeting be called by next week to vote on lifting the mask mandate. Following the DHHS announcement, the school district announced that masks would become optoinal soon and that the school board will hold a special meeting Feb. 22.
“The world around you is finally realizing that we the parents were right all along,” Shelley Peele, a parent, told the Wake school board on Tuesday. “Your house of cards is falling. CDC says cloth masks have little effect.
“DHHS removed school quarantine and now the county mask mandates are falling like dominoes.”
Wake school board member Jim Martin is urging his colleagues to keep the mask requirement, arguing that masks are still effective at keeping students and school employees safe.
“I hear a lot that kids are suffering,” Martin said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Sorry folks., I did not know we were such a fragile population. I have seen people suffer. I have seen people suffer trying to gasp for air.
“I’ve seen people suffering from malnutrition. I’ve seen people suffering from physical and emotional pain. I’ve never seen anybody suffer from a mask, and I’m sorry if it sounds a little angry there.”
Weighing risks of ending masking
Benjamin says districts can take a thoughtful approach about whether to lift mask requirements now that the COVID-19 vaccine is available to all students and the state is past the January omicron surge.
He said districts need to reach out to the community to make sure ending universal masking won’t inflame numbers at hospitals that might be short-staffed. He also says schools need to talk with families and school employees about the risk of COVID cases rising from going mask optional.
Benjamin said some districts, especially in communities with high COVID transmission, may decide to keep mask requirements through the end of the school year.
“I think it’s something that we should do in 2022,” Benjamin said of ending school mask mandates. “I’m not thrilled about some counties doing this February 15th of 2022. Some counties can reasonably safely try it. Others, that would be a concern.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Majority of NC school districts have dropped mask mandates. And more may follow soon.."
