No mask mandates and less quarantining: It’s a new year for school COVID rules
For the first time since before the pandemic, face masks will be the exception rather than the rule on the first day of classes for teachers and students.
No North Carolina school districts are requiring face coverings to be worn, a departure from the practice used for much of the past two school years. Schools will also be using less restrictive health guidelines that no longer require quarantining after a COVID-19 exposure.
“I started out as a student-teacher during 2020 through all of COVID and virtual learning,” said Maggie Rabil, a first-grade teacher at Barton Pond Elementary School in Raleigh. “I’m just excited to have them back in the classroom and to go back to a sense of normalcy.”
For the past two school years, most North Carolina public schools followed the COVID-19 guidelines from the state Department of Health and Human Services. Critics of the guidelines said they were too strict, especially when it came to handling quarantining of students and recommending that masks be required in schools.
The DHHS Strong Schools Toolkit has gone away, so schools are now being encouraged to use the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines.
Not required, but recommended
Earlier this month, the CDC released new guidelines that include changes such as no longer recommending that people who’ve been exposed to COVID-19 quarantine at home if they’re not infected. People who test positive are still expected, though, to stay home for at least five days.
While masks are no longer required, some districts such as Wake County, Durham Public Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro are recommending them.
“We’ve lifted many of our COVID-19 restrictions,” Drew Cook, Wake’s assistant superintendent of academics, told the school board recently. “We feel it’s important to continue to closely track and report positivity rates, and we’ll continue to follow the latest CDC protection and prevention guidance.”
‘Think and act differently’
COVID testing at schools is also ending in many cases. Schools instead are giving at-home test kits for parents and school employees who want them.
While some things are returning to normal, school leaders say they also can’t let everything return to what it was before COVID-19.
“Many students weren’t being served to the best of the district’s ability (prior to the pandemic),” said Nyah Hamlett, superintendent of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. “We need to think and act differently.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "No mask mandates and less quarantining: It’s a new year for school COVID rules."
