Masks may now be optional in Johnston County schools, but not everyone is dropping them
For the first time in almost two years, masks weren’t required Monday for students and staff to enter Johnston County schools.
The county school board voted last week to lift the district-wide mandate that had sparked contentious debate since students first resumed in-person learning. The decision made Johnston the first major Triangle area school system to have optional masking.
But that didn’t mean that all masks were gone Monday, as some parents and teachers said they fear dropping mask requirements now is premature while people are still getting sick from COVID-19.
“He’ll absolutely keep his mask on,” said Maria Rojas, whose son attends Swift Creek Middle School in Clayton. “I think we’re going to get a lot of new cases after this.”
April Lee, a middle school teacher and president of the Johnston County Association of Educators, told The News & Observer she worries the decision to end the mask requirement was based on politics and not health reasons.
“I know that probably 75% of my students — and possibly more — on Monday won’t be wearing a mask,” Johnson said in an interview Friday. “I will be. Even though I’m fully vaxxed and had the omicron variant, I still feel like we’re doing this a little prematurely.”
Johnston County’s example is a sign of things to come as other North Carolina school districts weigh eliminating mask mandates. Of the state’s 115 school districts, 55 require face masks and 60 say they’re optional, as of Thursday, according to a spreadsheet maintained by the N.C. School Boards Association.
The Wake County school system announced Friday that face masks no longer will be required in North Carolina’s largest district in the coming days. The message sent to families tells parents that Wake anticipates face masks will become optional. The school board, which originally planned to vote on the mask policy March 1, has scheduled a special meeting for 4 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the changes.
Wake’s announcement to move up the meeting came the day after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper encouraged municipalities and school boards “to end their mask mandates.”
As COVID-19’s transmission rate has dropped — and since vaccinations became available to children ages 5 and older — some state and education leaders around the country have lobbied to end mask rules. The governors of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon announced plans earlier this month to lift statewide school mask mandates, The Associated Press reported.
Johnston County changes policy
Johnston County made its decision Feb. 14, before Cooper’s Thursday press conference. The county has consistently voted to keep mask requirements in place. But after voting two weeks ago to make masks optional under certain conditions, the school board revised its decision, permitting all 37,000 Johnston County students to attend classes unmasked.
District leaders said their decision followed modifications to state health guidelines that ended contact tracing and narrowed the conditions under which students must quarantine following COVID-19 exposure.
“I 100% agree with the decision,” Paul Houston, a Johnston County parent, said of the decision to lift mask mandates. “They’ve adapted, but it’s been hard. I’m glad they can be kids again.”
Johnston County school board meetings became a lightning rod for mask controversy in August when U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican whose district includes Asheville and its surrounding areas, led a protest in Smithfield calling for the end of the mask mandate.
Jeffery Waters, a STEM teacher at Swift Creek, said his students are divided on the mask debate.
“I get the feeling it’s about a 50-50 split,” he said. “A lot of sixth-graders want to keep them on. But there are eighth-graders who have been waiting for this day.”
As a group of students arrived at Swift Creek Monday morning, they told Waters and other teachers “it’s awkward” going without their masks.
“It’s weird not wearing it now,” they said. “We’re so used to it.”
More schools expected to loosen mandates
An optional masking policy is likely to encompass all North Carolina public schools if a state bill, known as the “Free the Smiles” act, is ratified. The bill, which would allow parents to decide their children’s masking habits, passed the N.C. House of Representatives last week with a 76-42 vote. It passed the Senate 28-17.
“Let me be clear: It’s parents, not politicians who should be making these decisions for their children,” House Speaker Tim Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican, said Wednesday. “As other states across the country lift mask mandates and restrictions, North Carolina’s children will not be left behind.”
The N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services previously warned against making masks optional until local COVID transmission rates dropped to moderate or low levels, as measured by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All Triangle counties — including Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston — still have high community COVID transmission rates.
The state’s public school boards are required to vote every month about whether to keep masks mandates in place.
Around the Triangle, the Durham Public Schools board voted Feb. 10 to continue to require masks.
Andy Jenks, a spokesman for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district, told The N&O last week that the board will receive and update March 3, but that “we have a ways to go” before lifting the mandate.
The Orange County school board is expected to meet Monday to discuss making masks optional by certain dates if vaccination and community transmission rates meet certain benchmarks.
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 1:18 PM.
