Wake school board member sought Tuesday vote on mask rules. She was told to wait.
It will be two more two weeks — instead of on Tuesday — before the Wake County school board revisits the issue of whether to continue requiring face masks in schools.
Wake County school board member Karen Carter asked her colleagues to move up the March 1 vote on the district’s face mask policy to Tuesday’s meeting. Carter wanted the vote now because new state health guidance released last week will reduce how many students and school employees are quarantined due to COVID-19 exposure.
But school board chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey declined the request, saying there’s not enough support on the board to move up the vote. Carter said that a discussion and vote should happen this week because of how significant the state changes will be on students and school employees in Wake.
“I just think it’s worthy of a public discussion,” Carter said in an interview Monday. “But I guess we are not now.”
Under state law, school boards are required to vote at least monthly on their face mask policies. Wake County’s last vote to continue its mask policy was Feb. 1.
Mahaffey said it has been Wake’s practice to hold the mask vote at its first meeting of the month. After receiving Carter’s request and talking with some board members, Mahaffey said it was decided to wait until the next scheduled vote on March 1.
“We know this is an important vote for a lot of people, and we will vote again March 1,” Mahaffey said an interview Monday.
Some school boards aren’t waiting, though, to potentially end their mask requirements.
The school board in Lee County, 40 miles south of Raleigh, has scheduled a special meeting for Thursday. The board had voted last week, before the DHHS changes were released, to continue requiring masks.
Schools weigh mask mandate
There’s growing pressure to end school mask requirements now that the COVID-19 vaccine is available to children ages 5 and up. In addition, the number of new COVID cases is declining again after reaching record levels due to the omicron variant.
Last week, the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey and Oregon said they would lift their statewide school mask mandates.
Unlike last school year, North Carolina doesn’t have a statewide school mask mandate.
But the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that schools mandate masks if they’re in an area with high or substantial COVID-19 transmission. All 100 counties are in the high or substantial category.
The majority of North Carolina school districts require face masks. House Speaker Tim Moore announced last week that legislation will be filed to allow families to opt out of their school’s mask requirements.
DHHS eases school COVID rules
In Wake County, Carter has usually voted with her colleagues to require masks. She has cited how DHHS health guidelines had shorter quarantine rules for districts that require masks.
But last week, DHHS revised school health guidelines to say that students and school employees who’ve been exposed to COVID-19 no longer have to quarantine unless they tested positive or are showing symptoms. This applies regardless of whether a school requires face masks or makes them optional.
DHHS also revised its guidelines to say that schools no longer have to conduct contract tracing to find out who may have been exposed to the virus.
The Strong Schools Toolkit changes go into effect on Feb. 21.
“With the new guidance, it’s seeing how things shake out,” said Mahaffey, the school board chair. “We have other business to work on Tuesday. We will revisit this in March.”
Assuming Wake implements the changes, Carter said she’d support lifting the mask mandate and making face coverings optional for students and school employees.
“Mask optional means folks who want to wear masks and face shields, they’re free to do so,” Carter said. “I have not heard anything about trying to prevent anybody from wearing it even if there’s a change.”
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 2:03 PM.
