Baker touts school tests; mask mandate expires soon
Kids could soon be barefaced in classrooms if the mask mandate is allowed to expire on Nov. 1, but Gov. Charlie Baker punted the Herald’s question on that decision to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“The folks at DESE will have more to say about this next week,” Baker said outside Encore Casino Friday. “This is obviously an important decision for them and they know it, and they were spending a fair amount of time talking to our public health folks, as well as to a lot of superintendents.”
The mask mandate in schools has already been extended in late September from Oct. 1 to its current Nov. 1 expiration date, although the current guidance from DESE allows schools with 80% of its students and staff vaccinated to apply to lift the mask mandate before next month. Unvaccinated students and staff would still have to mask up.
Hopkinton High School became the first district Thursday to both meet the threshold and gain approval from the School Committee to drop the mandate. The mask-free policy will go into effect from Nov. 1 to Nov. 19 on a trial basis.
If the COVID-19 rates suddenly take a turn for the worse, the School Committee will hold an emergency meeting to reassess the situation.
In outlining Hopkinton’s plan, Baker noted that the school will follow the CDC standard for indoor activity, requiring masks for unvaccinated students and staff.
A DESE spokesperson confirmed that five other schools have met the 80% threshold and are approved by the organization to drop their masks but haven’t done so yet within their districts.
Those schools are: New England Academy School (approved special education school in Beverly), CorwinRussell School at Broccoli Hall (approved special education school in Sudbury), Westborough High School and Sarah Gibbons Middle in Westborough.
Baker also took the opportunity to tout the state’s school surveillance testing program. He said the amount of testing doubled compared to last spring, and the test positivity rate in schools is under 1%.
“The ‘Test and Stay’ program, which means if somebody is in close contact, we’ll rapid test them to make sure that they are able to continue to go to school and they continue to test negative, (has) saved over 50,000 school days,” he added.
This week, 2,154 students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 in schools, which represents a slight drop from the week prior, when 2,238 students and staff came down with COVID-19.
Massachusetts is expected to receive 360,000 smaller doses of the Pfizer vaccine by Nov. 5 in preparation for FDA approval of the vaccine for use in children ages 5 to 11 years old.