Mask Mandate in MA Schools Ending on 3/1

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.

Curious for any of you who have recently dropped the mask mandate (or do not have one), how things are going?

The governor announced yesterday that as of March 1, schools no longer need to mandate masks for students, though individual school districts are allowed to decide what they want to do.

The district where my kids go dropped the mandate as of 2/7 due to the >80% Vaccine rate (their schools both have >90%).  The district where I work which is right next door to where I live has a much lower rate of vaccination, so I imagine we will be keeping the mask mandate active through the end of the school year the way things are going now.  Interestingly, the city itself will be dropping the mask mandate as well as the vaccine mandate for businesses March 1 so it is interesting that the schools will continue with the active mandate.

Anyway, I was just curious how things are in your schools and if life has gotten a little better or if it has made things harder.  Our district will continue to do twice weekly pool testing as well as weekly take-home tests for all students and staff.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

Following this closely because we just found out we will be mask optional starting Monday.  Are we going to be quarantining entire classrooms again?  are parents going to pushback on the mandatory 5 day masking after the 5 day quarantine when they come back?  Getting anxious for the big work load to be coning back.  

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Specializes in kids.

We never had one...??  Our school board loathes the idea of our children being subjected to  such tyranny

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Also in MA, curious how many schools will choose to continue with masks. Sadly the way it usually goes is the least vaccinated districts will also be the first to celebrate with a mask burning party while I can also imagine some highly vaccinated districts choosing to keep the masks.   My district seems likely to keep them but the push back from a small but very vocal group of anti mask parents is likely to get even harder without the state wide mandate. It started within an hour of the governor's announcement. 

I wish they weren't doing this at the same time they are dropping contact tracing.  I'd rather we take a few weeks to see how that plays out before relaxing restrictions more.  If there is a surge we won't be able to tell which looser-restriction was the reason for it.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

I would love to drop contact tracing.  That is the most difficult part of all this.  Our county is not contact tracing so I am not sure why we do it at school. 

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I am so much more comfortable with the idea of dropping contact tracing and test to stay than I am with losing masks.   We never found positive kids through test to stay.

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Specializes in school nurse.
16 minutes ago, arlingtonnurse said:

I am so much more comfortable with the idea of dropping contact tracing and test to stay than I am with losing masks.   We never found positive kids through test to stay.

Are you participating in the MA DESE take-home test surveillance program?

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Specializes in pediatrics, school nursing.

We dropped contact tracing and TTS as soon as it was announced we could; TTS was such a waste of time. And to date, with masking and distancing (of at least 3 feet), we have only had 1 confirmed case of in-school transmission in my building. 

We are also doing the Home Surveillance testing, first round of kits went home today. My school's vax rate is around 35-40% currently. It may be higher, but not everyone's vaccine records are tied into MIIS and so they aren't automatically getting added to SNAP and so getting an accurate count is difficult. I feel that we shouldn't drop the masks until at LEAST the end of April, when windows can be opened again. Or better yet, continuing to mask until we reach that 80% vax rate threshold. 

I also question this change when they do still require post-positive kids to continue to mask - won't this out them and be a HIPPA violation if enforced? Not to mention the social implications. I can see it now - "So and so has a mask on, they must have COVID, EWWWWW." 

I'm at the point where I've given up on counting on others to do the right thing, though, so part of me is like.... F--- it. Masks off for all! Except for on buses and in health offices, of course...

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27 minutes ago, Jedrnurse said:

Are you participating in the MA DESE take-home test surveillance program?

Yes we are.  We will also continue with our weekly pooled testing.  After doing pool testing all year,  we have a routine that works for kids, staff and me so I am fine with keeping that going.  Pooled testing is how we have caught the vast majority of our positive covid cases at school.

 

Somewhat anxious to see how the roll out goes with the take home program but it is set up (in my district) with the nurses having a minimal role, which I appreciate.

 

2 minutes ago, k1p1ssk said:

I feel that we shouldn't drop the masks until at LEAST the end of April, when windows can be opened agai

We have never stopped opening windows.  It has been COLD in our school but the kids wear sweatshirts and jackets.  I wear two sweatshirts when one doesn't cover it (and hug my space heater).

 

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Specializes in pediatrics, school nursing.
8 minutes ago, arlingtonnurse said:

We have never stopped opening windows.  It has been COLD in our school but the kids wear sweatshirts and jackets.  I wear two sweatshirts when one doesn't cover it (and hug my space heater).

 

We have air purifiers in every room that were supposedly very highly rated for air filtration. Our district couldn't justify the increased heating costs to leave windows open, and our buildings' HVAC systems are super old (I.e. no air conditioning whatsoever). And if we turned off the heat, the pipes would freeze, so can't do that either...

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Specializes in School nursing.

We aren't dropping ours on March 1 - city I'm in isn't dropping their mandate just yet either. Honestly, dropping it RIGHT after February break is a terrible idea. Why couldn't the state just at least wait one more week!

I did just hit 80% vaccination in my HS. Grades 5-8 aren't there and likely never will get there (we are 5-12). 

We also dropped contact tracing and TTS as soon as we could. I had 8 kids all year test positive and 5 of those were during the week AFTER Winter break - we were catching post New Year's exposure, not in classroom exposure. This was out of nearly 1000 Test and Stay tests. 

We are opted into antigen testing program and the first batch of rapid tests went home last week those families opting in (only about 20% thus far). We just got another batch of free rapid tests from the local health department as well, so we are sending home each kid with 2 tests for February Break (whether they opted into rapid testing program or not) with recommended instructions to test on Feb 27th. We can't police it, of course, but we are offering the tool.

We are doing the same for staff, but staff will actually test on February 27th and are grateful for the free tests. 

We are getting emails about dropping our mask mandate. And they are ALL coming from families who have NOT chosen to vaccinate their kids. Sigh. 

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Specializes in School Nursing, Pediatrics.

The big city in MA I work in is not dropping until at least March 8 th, possibly later, depending on SC vote. The small town I live in sent out a survey to parents and will decide by that I guess. My kids (all in HS) have said they will still wear the mask and several of their teachers told them that no matter what the SC says, in their classroom they will HAVE to wear it. 

I'm guessing its going to be a free for all frenzy and cases will be back up after vacation week. I am still going to wear my mask, possibly forever! LOL

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