All Marblehead Schools To Go Mask-Optional On Feb. 28

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Students and staff at the Brown and Glover Elementary Schools will be able to join those at Marblehead's other three schools in all going mask-optional as of Feb. 28.

The town acquired a state waiver for the high school, middle school and Village School to go mask-optional earlier this month with those three schools at the 80 vaccination rate, but the two elementary schools remained under the state order. With the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education now order set to expire for all schools on Feb. 28, the School Committee voted Thursday night to allow the order to expire in town as well.

Superintendent John Buckey requested that students in all schools keep the masks on for the week returning from school vacation as a precaution against a post-holiday surge in COVID-19 cases, but the School Committee went with the earlier date.

The vote was unanimous.

"Everybody has the same goal," said School Committee member Meagan Taylor, who made the motion for the Feb. 28 date over March 7. "We want to keep our students and healthy. We want to keep our staff safe and healthy. And we want to keep our schools open. But one of the shifts we've been doing is not mandating those pieces anymore because of where we are with COVID. We've learned a lot and a lot has changed since this all began."

Taylor referenced the increased availability of tests and the continued decline of COVID-19 cases before concluding: "Families are partners here. We've been saying that all along. If you are at greater risk from COVID, hopefully, you are testing and masking if you need to. ... But I am not sure the mandate (for everyone) is necessary."

School Committee members expressed concern about a week of "mask policing" for three schools where students have already experienced being mask-optional for two weeks and the reasoning for not following DESE guidelines at this point when the district has done so throughout the past two years of the pandemic.

"If (DESE) had wanted to extend the mask mandate until March 7 they would have done that," School Committee Chair Sarah Gold said. "I am really struggling with: 'It was good enough up until now, but now we're going to do this.' There's a disconnect there for me.

"I absolutely agree on the policing it front. We know that the morale with the kids and the masks was pretty low, particularly at the high school, before we allowed them to go mask-optional and that was causing behavioral issues and discipline issues."

Gold said she continues to wear a mask and is not personally ready to "make that jump."

"But that's my decision," she allowed. "I think if we start to try to take some of that back it leaves me sitting in a conundrum and I worry that our teachers and our administrators are going to have to fall back into that (mask-policing) role.

"It's not what school should be about at this point — discipline over a mask."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)