A week after anti-mask protest, Johnston votes to continue requiring masks in schools
Johnston County students and teachers must continue to wear face masks in school, despite a protest led by U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn last week to make the coverings optional.
The Johnston County school board voted 4-3 on Monday to continue its face mask requirement for at least another month. A group of two school board members will now meet with Dr. Marilyn Pearson, the county health director, to discuss the metrics for lifting the mask requirement.
“It is vitally important in the spirit of transparency that we have a metric established so that parents know what that looks like and, you know, give them some hope that this is not forever,” said board vice chairwoman Terri Sessoms.
The vote to continue masking came after a closed-session discussion that lasted for 13 minutes. Lyn Andrews, Al Byrd, Kay Carroll and Sessoms voted to continue the mask requirement. Ronald Johnson, chairman Todd Sutton and Michael Wooten voted against requiring masks.
The board had initially planned to vote last Tuesday, the same day Cawthorn and hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside the board meeting in Smithfield. But the vote was delayed a week due to the absence of Sessoms, whose husband recently died.
Worsening hospital conditions
Carroll cited data presented at last week’s board meeting by Dr. Rodney McCaskill, the chief medical officer at Johnston Health, for continuing the mask requirement.
McCaskill said there’s been a tenfold increase in the number of patients in the county’s hospitals who are on life support. He said hospital beds are so full that hospitals have stopped elective surgeries that require an overnight stay.
Board members tried to offer some hope to parents on Monday by forming the new metrics group suggested by Andrews. She will be joined by Wooten. Sutton asked Johnson to attend if Wooten is unavailable.
“It’s vitally important to have somebody who’s pro-choice for masks as well as somebody that’s pro-face coverings so that we can have both parties represented at the table,” Sutton said.
The vote comes at a time when nearly all of North Carolina’s 115 school districts are still requiring masks in the face of rising number COVID-19 numbers from the delta variant. But some districts, such as Harnett County and Lincoln County, voted last week to end their mask requirements.
Johnston was among at least 10 school boards holding meetings on Monday. They’re holding their monthly vote on masking rules that’s now required under a new state law.
Less quarantining needed if masked
Opponents of requiring face masks thought they could flip Johnston County because the board had only voted 4-3 last month to mandate the coverings. Previously, the board had voted 4-3 in late July to make masks optional.
The difference between July and August was that Andrews flipped her vote. Andrews had said at the August meeting that she was changing her vote because state health guidelines have relaxed quarantine rules for districts that require masks.
On Monday, Johnston County’s COVID dashboard showed 144 active positive cases and 689 active quarantines among students and 17 active cases and 52 active quarantines among school employees.
Johnston is the state’s seventh-largest school district, with more than 37,000 students. In contrast, the Union County school system, which has 40,000 students, had more than 7,000 students quarantined last week.
The difference is due to Union County being subject to stricter state rules on quarantines because it’s not requiring masks.
The Union County school board voted last week to end most quarantine requirements. But after Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, threatened legal action, the school board voted Monday to modify the quarantine rules.
Create mask-optional schools?
Johnson, the board member, suggested Monday that Johnston County develop a plan identifying certain schools where face masks would be optional. He said the district could then give students and school employees who don’t want to be masked the option to go to there.
At least one Johnston County teacher has resigned because she refused to follow the district’s mask policy.
Johnson compared having mask-optional schools to how the district offers a virtual program for students who don’t feel comfortable yet with returning for in-person classes.
“This could be over in six months or a year or whatever, or a month,” Johnson said. “But if we can just come up with some kind of a plan because there’s people who want their children not to wear a mask, people who don’t want their children not to wear a mask and there’s people that just want to be in school that could care less about the mask.”
Sutton, the board chair, embraced the idea. But Sutton said he’s optimistic that a COVID vaccine for children as young as age 5 could be available as soon as next month.
The COVID-19 vaccine is currently only approved for children as young as age 12. But on Monday, Pfizer announced that its COVID-19 vaccine works for children ages 5 to 11 and that it will seek U.S. authorization for this age group soon, the Associated Press reported.
“There are things that are continuing to move in the right direction as far as giving us just giving us good hope on that,” Sutton said. “I agree with you Mr. Johnson. We’ve got to provide some opportunities for everyone that has students in Johnston County Public Schools.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
