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.
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.
My (age-eligible) student vaccination rate is just above 95%. I pulled together a list of un or under vaccinated students and (surprise!) 7 out of 8 of them have had COVID.
(Full disclosure, there's been enough breakthrough infections to go around as well, but not at that rate.)
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 pretty sure that that level of policy-making is NOT made at the teacher/classroom level.
My (age-eligible) student vaccination rate is just above 95%. I pulled together a list of un or under vaccinated students and (surprise!) 7 out of 8 of them have had COVID.
(Full disclosure, there's been enough breakthrough infections to go around as well, but not at that rate.)
Oh, it is same here. Nearly all my unvaccinated students have gotten COVID. Vaccinated kids, yes, I did see a huge increase, but there are plenty of vaccinated kids that didn't get COVID as well to round it out.
I'm pretty sure that that level of policy-making is NOT made at the teacher/classroom level.
It's an interesting idea. Yes, teachers do have a significant say about what goes on in their class. Often different teachers in the same school have different policies on hats, eating, electronics, etc. and I can see how a teacher might want to have their classroom wear masks but I imagine it being much more contentious than when the whole school wears one.
It's an interesting idea. Yes, teachers do have a significant say about what goes on in their class. Often different teachers in the same school have different policies on hats, eating, electronics, etc. and I can see how a teacher might want to have their classroom wear masks but I imagine it being much more contentious than when the whole school wears one.
Sounds like a potential minefield, particularly on items that tend to have written schoolwide policies e.g. electronics.
I am in Ohio. We had a mask mandate at the beginning of the year. We then went to a mask to stay/test to play option. Where kids that were exposed at home could still come to school as long as they were not having symptoms and mask for 10 days. They are to "self-monitor" symptoms and isolate and get tested if symptoms develop. They are also supposed to be able to have the positive person at home isolate away from them and not be in contact. If that is not possible, then they have to quarantine.
If they play sports, they would test on initial notification of exposure and then test again on day 5 after exposure, and mask when on buses, locker room, on the sidelines.
I do have to say it has been working out pretty well. Our rate of positives has been down over the past two weeks. I have only had 3 positive cases, whereas at the beginning of the year we would have around 20 a week. We are also not required to do contact tracing within the classrooms anymore. (which I do not agree with). We are expected to report positive cases every Friday to the department of health and to notify them if we have noticed an upward trend in cases.
I am expecting an uptick in cases to start this week since everyone was going to Super Bowl parties this Sunday.
We don't even require students returning on Day 6 of positive status to mask. No distancing. Haven't traced in forever. No quarantining of exposures this year.
Case numbers have been on par with school districts around us that have maintained stricter masking/quarantine guidelines. Selfishly, I've been glad so much has been lifted off my individual plate. I may have left school nursing for a couple years if it wasn't.
We don't even require students returning on Day 6 of positive status to mask. No distancing. Haven't traced in forever. No quarantining of exposures this year.
Case numbers have been on par with school districts around us that have maintained stricter masking/quarantine guidelines. Selfishly, I've been glad so much has been lifted off my individual plate. I may have left school nursing for a couple years if it wasn't.
No masks required for students here this year. We did encourage them last year and many elementary students wore them due to teachers really pushing it. High school students did not mask near as much, since they knew we couldn't "require" it due to no state mask mandate and their right to an education. Staff were required to wear a mask last year, but not this year. This year almost no one is wearing masks unless they are returning early from COVID or exposure. Our vaccination numbers are very low for the 5-18 age group (about 35%). Staff are probably around 50% vaccinated. COVID numbers have been similar both years. Illness/absence numbers are similar both years and similar to pre-covid as well. I didn't see a positive impact with masks. They were always gross, dirty, little kids were touching them, etc. I'm glad to not have them this year. I'm glad to not be required to do contact tracing or testing in schools either. Kids are not getting serious illness with this. They are low risk and should be treated as such.
We got rid of masks last week. So far I have two positives that are clearly directly related to each other.
We are only contact tracing at home contacts, tracing at school now would be near impossible at the high school and middle school level. Our students hang out in the halls, gym, cafeteria, library, etc. before school starts, they had stopped this up until a few weeks ago.
I tell parents if their student comes back on a shortened isolation/quarantine, they will need to remain masked until they get to day ten, but there is no way to enforce it. I cannot follow the student around in every class, hallways, etc. to see if they have kept their mask on.
Jedrnurse, BSN, RN
2,776 Posts
My (age-eligible) student vaccination rate is just above 95%. I pulled together a list of un or under vaccinated students and (surprise!) 7 out of 8 of them have had COVID.
(Full disclosure, there's been enough breakthrough infections to go around as well, but not at that rate.)