As the school year quickly approaches, administrators and school boards are deciding whether students and staff should wear masks, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and most medical experts across the board.
For districts that have not decided, Mooresville Graded School District in Iredell County, may provide some guidance. The district’s superintendent, Stephen Mauney announced Thursday that it was scrapping its mask-optional protocol in favor of universal masking after 80 students were quarantined, including an entire classroom, after four days of school.
“If required masking were in place during the first four days, our quarantine number would have been less than 10 students total. This data point itself shows us that we can keep more kids in school when we all wear masks,” Mauney wrote in a message.
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Mauney wrote the message on the same day that a group of citizens opposing a mask mandate interrupted a meeting of the Buncombe County Board of Education and attempted to overthrow the board, a move with no legal authority.
Among local rural districts, Surry County is something of an outlier, with all three of its school districts, Surry County Schools, Mount Airy City Schools and Elkin City Schools requiring masks for at least the start of the school year.
In an announcement to students and staff in Mount Airy City Schools, Superintendent Kim Morrison said masking will allow more students to stay in school. Updated guidance from North Carolina says that students who are properly masked and showing no symptoms of COVID-19 don’t have to quarantine if they come into close contact with someone exposed to the virus. Last year, that person may have been looking at 10 to 14 days of quarantine.
“This will drastically reduce the number of times students and families are impacted by quarantine,” Morrison wrote.
Other rural districts in the area, including those in Davie, Yadkin, Stokes and Wilkes counties have all decided to go mask-optional. Each of these counties is experiencing a high level of community transmission of COVID-19, according to the CDC.
Davidson County Schools will be mask-optional while Thomasville City Schools and Lexington City Schools will require masks to start the year.
Local Catholic schools have taken a split approach. Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School, which serves students in K-8, said in a message to its community that it will require masks.
Principal Sister Geri Rogers wrote that the school has some students, teachers and staff with compromised health conditions.
“For the safety of everyone,” she wrote, “Mercy’s faculty, staff and students will be wearing masks until it is deemed safe to unmask.”
Forsyth County’s other two Catholic schools, St. Leo’s Catholic School, a K-8 school, and Bishop McGuinness, a high school, will follow guidance established by the Diocese of Charlotte, and make masks optional at school and on buses.
Other private schools that are requiring masks are Summit School and Forsyth Country Day School.
Calvary Day School did not immediately return an email on its mask protocol.
Dr. Christopher Ohl, an infectious disease expert at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, advocated for universal masking in school at his weekly briefing on Thursday.
“If kids aren’t coming back to school masked, it’s going to put entire school year at risk,” he said.
