SWAMPSCOTT — The School Committee voted Wednesday night to rescind the district’s mask mandate in schools and to support the superintendent’s decision to keep students and staff masked for two weeks after the February school vacation.
Masks will become optional in the Swampscott Public Schools on March 14.
On Feb. 9, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced it was lifting the statewide mask requirement in schools starting Feb. 28. However, it also gave the authority to each school district to make a local decision about masking.
Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis recommended Wednesday that masks remain a requirement in Swampscott schools until the end of February and for the first two weeks of March after the mid-winter school vacation, if there is no dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases. After March 14, masking will be optional but other forms of mitigation that were implemented throughout the pandemic will be rescinded.
“Everyone you speak to, every email I’ve received, everybody has a different perspective, a different opinion,” said Angelakis. “I sincerely hope this date is a reasonable compromise that can work best for all of us.”
She said she has consulted with school nurses, her central-office staff and students, and received a lot of emails both from people who would have liked her to follow the DESE recommendation and those who wanted to keep masks mandatory until the end of the school year, Angelakis said.
“What people don’t understand is just how different education has been in the last two years,” she said.
Starting Feb. 28, Swampscott schools will reduce social distancing, reinstitute rug time at the elementary level, go back to group work and seating, and eliminate daily fogging and desk shields. Medical waiting rooms will be converted back to their original use and transition back to education, Angelakis said.
The schools will be able to serve two lunches instead of the four that are currently offered to mitigate COVID-19 transmission.
Defining “dramatic increase,” Angelakis said that she is not a COVID-19 expert and wouldn’t want to put a number requirement, but she will be looking out for numbers of hospitalizations and severe cases.
“We will know if there is a dramatic increase,” said Angelakis. “I don’t want to unmask to realize two weeks after we’re back, we’re going to put the masks back on.”
The superintendent said that she worries about younger students who have never attended schools without masks and never did activities close to each other on a rug. She worries about anxiety among students who still fear the virus and teasing.
“I know that the community thinks that sometimes I’ve led extremely cautiously. But I would rather do that. I cannot dismiss the idea that our little ones and the big ones need to reacclimate to what learning used to look like,” Angelakis said.
Angelakis has shared her recommendation with teachers and received a lot of positive feedback and support. She said there are teachers who would like to remain masked until the end of the school year.
Her message to principals is to talk to their staff about respecting choices and differences.
“Conversations have to happen in every classroom,” she said.
Per DESE decision, masks will still be required on buses and in the nurse’s office.
Several members of the School Committee said that they were taken aback initially when they saw the March 14 date, but ultimately understood the superintendent’s intentions.
“It strikes the right balance,” said John Giantis, a member of the School Committee, “making sure that little kids are ready for it.”
Giantis also suggested collecting feedback from teachers in March about instances of teasing or other mask-related issues.
School Committee Chair Amy OConnor praised the superintendent’s team for thinking about the social-emotional piece that a sudden change can play.
Meggie Jensen, a student representative on the committee, said that she personally will be keeping her mask on after March 14.
“What we are doing is the perfect course of action,” said Jensen.
Another student representative, Madison Diehl, said that gradual change is great.
“It is going to be wonderful to take my mask off,” she said. “I think returning to normal is what people need.”
