The School Committee voted unanimously at its Feb. 14 meeting to rescind Harvard Public Schools’ mask mandate starting Wednesday, March 9, two weeks after the state is planning to lift its school mask mandate. The committee chose to wait to allow two rounds of weekly testing to identify positive cases following February school vacation week.
Masks will still be required on buses per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and also in the school nurse’s office. But other caveats remain to be worked out by the school’s COVID policy subcommittee, administration, and nurses in the coming weeks. Under consideration are what to do about unvaccinated students and students returning from quarantine or after testing positive for COVID-19. The subcommittee will also look at what parameters to use to determine if required masking needs to be brought back.
Superintendent Linda Dwight presented the results of a survey asking for student, parent, and faculty comfort levels for making masks optional in school. About 70% of Hildreth Elementary School parents were evenly split between very uncomfortable and very comfortable with making masks optional. Results among Bromfield School parents showed a much higher level of confidence in unmasking, with 41% very comfortable and only 22% very uncomfortable. More than 700 parents, 300 Bromfield students, and 130 faculty and staff responded to the survey.
HES faculty responses showed 42% very comfortable with optional masking and only 23% uncomfortable. But Bromfield School responses showed the opposite–only 21% were comfortable removing masks while nearly half were uncomfortable. In addition, faculty members reported a reluctance to rescind the mandate on Feb. 28, as the state will do, citing the need for testing when students return from school vacation.
Dwight said about 70% of the parents who completed the survey made comments in the open response section, and there were strong opinions on both sides. That difference of opinion was evident in the public comment portion of the meeting. In addition to weighing in on rescinding the mandate, speakers were concerned about discrimination against unvaccinated students should they be required to continue to wear masks. Parents were also concerned that students who chose to wear masks would be bullied, as would those who chose not to.
School Committee member Shannon Molloy said she has heard from parents whose children are afraid to go to school unless everyone is masked. She added that for two years, parents have told their children they are wearing masks to keep everyone safe, and it will be hard to change that perception in just a few weeks. Dwight said she had already met with faculty to discuss the need for a shift in thinking, and she hopes to work with school counselors and parents to develop tools to support students during this change.
The Board of Health met earlier on Feb. 14 and discussed lifting the townwide mask mandate in public spaces, currently set to expire March 14. Nashoba Associated Boards of Health agent Ira Grossman told the board many towns will wait until after school vacation week before considering lifting their mask mandates, and members agreed they would revisit the issue when post-vacation school test results become available.
