MASKS MANDATED FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
Board updates plan as parents speak out for both sides
TOWAMENCIN >> The debate is over for now, just days ahead of the start of a new school year.
North Penn’s school board voted unanimously Thursday night to update their health and safety plan to require masks for elementary students in classrooms when school starts on Aug. 30.
“Just to be clear, in regards to the masks, which is the clear issue of the night, the plan is to mandate for the elementary schools, and to continue to peg the option to mask to community transmission rates for secondary,” said board Vice President Christian Fusco.
“So it’s required for elementary school at all levels of transmission: low, moderate, substantial and high, indoors; outdoors, it’s optional. For secondary, it is recommended for low and moderate indoors, and required for substantial and high, and again outdoors would be optional,” board President Tina Stoll answered.
Masking in schools was debated at length throughout the 2020-21 school year, as students returned from online learning and staff reopening schools to
in-person instruction while state, county and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 were eased. In July, the board voted to adopt a return plan for 2021-22 with face coverings optional for students in both elementary and secondary schools, reflecting the relaxed regulations from above at the time, while in early August staff showed how rising case counts yielded a recommendation to resume making masks mandatory at elementary schools.
That updated plan, with masking required indoors for elementary students at low transmission levels defined by the Montgomery County Office of Public Health, was up for discussion Thursday night, and over a hundred parents and residents attended, with about half sounding off to voice both sides of the mask debate.
After that lengthy debate, district superintendent Curt Dietrich detailed how the latest statistics from the county put North Penn in the “substantial’ transmission level, which calls for masks to be required indoors for both elementary and secondary students. If case counts drop for two consecutive weeks, the “moderate” transmission level would instead allow masks to become optional at the secondary level.
Board member Juliane Ramic added that masks are still mandated on all public school buses, per a federal regulation the district has no control over. Fusco asked for an update on the latest community transmission statistics, and Dietrich gave the figures as of Wednesday, as provided by Montgomery County.
“As of Wednesday of this week, the North Penn school district’s municipalities, as you look at those data and aggregate them and apportion them, we are at 61 cases per 100,000. That would put us into the ‘substantial’ category,” Dietrich said.
“The health and safety plan does call for the category to change after two weeks in the same category — so be on notice that we are presently in ‘substantial,’ and if we’re in substantial again next week we would move over to that column. At secondary (schools), masks would be required,” he said.
Board member Elisha Gee asked for specifics on how the plan addresses lunches, and Assistant Superintendent Todd Bauer said the plan states cafeterias will require masking to and in the cafeteria “unless actively eating or drinking.” Member Jonathan Kassa asked about masking rules for teachers. Dietrich said, “If the teacher is fully vaccinated, and if they are six feet or more away from children, doing a lesson, they would have that latitude to be able to drop their mask during that time period.”
Kassa also asked about mask breaks, and Dietrich said those are ‘encouraged”, and those with medical needs can provide a doctor’s note.
“I will also note that in the health and safety plan, it does call for North Penn to engage in an assurance testing program, and that would be required. However, if there is a staff member that is fully vaccinated, and can provide proof of vaccination, they would not be required to participate in that,” Dietrich said.
Board member Wanda Lewis-Campbell asked how the district would handle students who forget masks, and Dietrich said schools will each have a supply of extras. Kassa then asked if the same rules would apply to outdoor events, and Bauer said they “would apply to all events and visitors to the campus.”
“So if it’s an outdoor event, and masks are optional outdoors given the level of transmission in the community, then that’s what would be the expectation of the visitors to the campus. Same thing with indoors,” Bauer said.
When will the plan take effect? Immediately, Dietrich said, with communication from the board to families expected Friday that will detail the plan and the current “substantial” level of transmission.
“The health and safety plan does call for two weeks within that same range, for a change in status. We’re concerned that it appears right now, with the modeling that we’re looking at, that we’ll stay in substantial for at least a while,” Dietrich said.
“Which would mean that by the start of school, we would be in substantial for two weeks, and students would be required to be masked,” he said.
At the secondary level, if the transmission rates drop from substantial to moderate for two consecutive weeks, all parents and families would be notified after a first week.
“My advice would be to continue to monitor, to be on notice, that week one it’s headed in a particular direction. But you do need two weeks at one status to change the status — in either direction,” he said.
Those transmission level metrics have been established by Montgomery County’s Office of Public Health, Dietrich added, and the county’s statistics will be used to determine if the level has changed. After about ten minutes of questions from the board, all nine members voted to adopt the updated plan, while showing the chart of criteria on a projection screen for the audience.
That crowd had their say for roughly two hours prior, alternating at two podiums and limited to two minutes each. Joanne Oropeza said her son has medical problems exacerbated by masks, including anxiety and a bloody nose, and another has had headaches since wearing them.
“When people say kids are fine to just wear a mask, that is false. We are all in different boats. And this is why I’m pleading to keep this a parental decision, on what works best for each individual family,” she said.
Katie Hersh said she was worried about young students who have already had two years with masks, and will now head into a third.
“You are elected school board members, elected by people like me to represent the community. Your job is to listen to the community, not dictate your personal politics on thousands of families,” she said.
Mike Flannery told the board he saw them as “people that fall into three categories: ignorant, greedy and evil. The time for figuring out what group you fall into, has come and gone. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re still sitting on this stage, pushing masks, CRT (Critical Race Theory), and fast-track vaccines on these kids, for a virus with the kill rate of a lightning strike, you are evil.”
His wife Vicki then asked why the board is hosting a pep rally at the high school’s newly renovated Crawford Stadium, just days before the start of school: “There are zero caps on attendance, no mask requirements, and zero vaccine mandates to attend. Sounds like, while they’re up here preaching that our young children, who are the least affected by COVID, are the community villains, tiny little super spreaders, the true super spreaders will be this board and their unregulated event.”
Kelly Karetsky said she’s a registered nurse and mom of three, and said the same studies showing the effectiveness of masks were available last week, when the board sat together unmasked at Penndale Middle School, as this week when they sat masked at the high school.
“The CDC didn’t give an exemption for vaccinated North Penn school board members. Every one of you read that statement, and still sat shoulder-to-shoulder without masks, exercising your freedom of choice to make an educated decision that was right for you. The families in this district deserve the same consideration.”
Lauren Reiley said she favored a mask mandate, particularly at the elementary level, citing state and county recommendations to do so.
“The primary objective of bringing us all here tonight is consistent and sustainable in-person education for our children. At this time, the best way to achieve that is through a mask requirement,” she said.
Sara Hoffman said she’s “disappointed we are still here having a debate about masks,” as case counts rise again: “I think we can all agree, maybe, if nothing else, that we want schools open and our kids in the school building. but we haven’t yet created a safe enough environment for that to happen.”
Debbie Zitin said she has a great-niece who was recently hospitalized with what was later found to be COVID and multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children: “CHOP, at this point, has a whole floor full of these children. They end up hooked up to tubes, and constantly testing different medications to bring all of their systems under control ... do any of you really want your children to be one of those 10 percent, 20 percent, whatever the number is?”
Jennifer Svetlik said she backed the mandate, particularly for her York Avenue Elementary student: “This pandemic has revealed how interconnected we are, and my kids wearing a mask protects others around them. And they depend on others around them wearing a mask to protect them as well.”
Kathy Heath said she’s seen speech errors in students masked for the past two years, and said she felt summer and online courses have been far less effective than in-person: “Get back to the job you were elected for, the education of our children, not public health policy.”
Eric Knoblauch said he backed the mandates, and asked residents to consider: “If cases rise, and remote learning is required, many of us here are going to wish that we did more.”
Beth Staab said studies have shown the delta variant of COVID-19 was proving more harmful to children and could cause pediatric hospital rooms to fill: “That means that when any of kids may have a car accident, or have complications from cancer, or drowning, or any other incident, there may not be a bed for them. We have no capacity to make the same mistakes that they’re making in other states like Florida, Texas and others.”
Jessie Bradica, who is running for school board, asked if the board’s prior statements about ensuring equity and removing learning gaps, now rang hollow due to virtual learning: “I’d like to remind you that despite the division and rhetoric tonight, we are united in the fact that we all love our children, and this community. No one wants harm. We want our right to make the safest and healthiest choice for our children.”
Yanni Lambros said he knows of friends who took a COVID vaccine and now have blood clots and kidney problems, and another has told of a student who passed out while running in track practice while wearing a mask, while questioning whether the board was trying to intimidate those against masks: “You don’t scare me, and you don’t scare the parents behind me. People are rising up, more and more every day. You will be voted out. We are united, both parties, all backgrounds, we are all together.”
Jonathan Neil said he felt sorry for the board, because “no matter which way you go, people are going to be upset,” and called on the community to back the board and stay civil: “It’s your decision, and however you make it, the community should support you, and not try to harass you.”
Kunbi Rudnick said she felt “not having a mask mandate, in the elementary schools in particular, is to say we should have a super spreader event every day ... the bottom line is, as a community, we have to come together and support it.”
Nadia Sharifi, a rising senior at NPHS, said “No one wants to have a normal schoolyear more than the class of 2022, who haven’t had a single one yet. And this is exactly why we need to follow the recommendations of health officials,” including the mask mandate.
Deb Zimmerman said she’s the parent of a North Penn graduate who is now an emergency room doctor, whose hospital loses five to ten patients a day due to COVID and the strain on hospital capacity it has caused.
Annamae Potemski asked the board to consider: “if the only argument for masking our young children is that it’s better safe than sorry, we can only say that if there are no disadvantages to mask wearing. But we know masks can be vectors of pathogens,” reduce oxygen, and cause psychological harm. “We cannot mask our children to make adults feel better.”
And James Stasheff said he recalled his son catching measles just before that vaccine was developed, and a daughter with whooping cough prior to that vaccine.
“Now we’re in a situation where there’s a new monster stalking us and our children. So why are we objecting to wearing a mask? What I hear is, ‘Because you’re telling us to, and we don’t take that.’ Well, I used to think that way about 70 years ago, when I was a teenager.”