All public school students and staff in Massachusetts will be required to wear masks through at least Oct.1.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) board voted during a special meeting Tuesday morning to give Jeffrey C. Riley, commissioner of elementary and secondary education, an emergency authority to issue a respective mandate due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts.
The mask mandate will include an exemption for individuals who cannot wear a mask for medical or behavioral reasons.
The commissioner is planning to reassess the approach by the beginning of October based on the situation then.
“I believe having these measures in place will allow for a strong start of the school year and provide additional safety measures until more students and staff are vaccinated,” said Riley in the memorandum to the board. “As we know, vaccination remains the single most important tool in mitigating the impact of COVID-19.”
Riley is planning to include in the mandate that if a school demonstrates a vaccination rate of 80 percent or more of all students and staff, it will be able to receive permission to lift the mask mandate for vaccinated individuals. In alignment with statewide guidance, unvaccinated students and staff will be required to continue wearing masks.
The 80 percent threshold has been agreed to by the state Department of Public Health.
After the recent full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, the board seemed open to the idea of mandatory vaccination of all educators, as both Secretary of Education James Peyser of Milton and the board member Dr. Martin West of Newton agreed that vaccinations were the first line of defense.
All but one board member voted in favor of the mandate.
Paymon Rouhanifard of Brookline voted against obligatory masking. He said tying masking to vaccination rates was bad public policy since vaccination of children under 12 won’t be approved in 2021.
Instead, the decision about the mandate should be tied to community spread, Rouhanifard said. He pointed out that hospitalization and death rates were low in absolute terms, even though the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus was much more contagious.
“Erring on the side of caution loses sight of the bigger picture,” Rouhanifard said.
Board member Matt Hills of Newton was more optimistic. “[I am hoping] that, one month from now, we are talking about success in relaxing the mandate.”
Before the vote, the board acknowledged thousands of parents who wrote to them in the 72 hours since the special meeting was announced.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should be providing schools and districts with guidance regarding implementation of the mask mandate in the next week, per Riley’s memorandum.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association welcomed the decision. MTA President Merrie Najimy called it “a significant advancement toward keeping our communities safe” in her statement issued Tuesday after the vote.
“We will continue to call for required vaccinations for all school employees ― subject to bargaining ― and for all eligible students,” the statement said.
