Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt: MA 'Took Away Our Local Authority'

PEABODY, MA — Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt and some school officials expressed frustration Tuesday night over a state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education vote Tuesday authorizing an indoor mask mandate for all Massachusetts public schools to start the school year regardless of vaccination status.

The School Committee had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday night with an intention to vote on whether to enact a universal mask mandate or accept previous DESE guidance that "strongly recommended" masks for unvaccinated students and staff — including those under 12 not yet eligible for a coronavirus vaccine — but making it optional for vaccinated older students and staff.

"The rules changed on us," Bettencourt, who is also the School Committee Chair, said before beginning public comment. "I know this issue has generated a great deal of emotionally charged feelings. I have four children in our public schools. I have one in elementary, one in middle and two at the high school. I know this is something that is extremely important and something that I have been doing a great deal of research on. I know all of us have been.

"The decision made today by the Department of Elementary and Second Education — DESE — took away our local authority, took away our ability to vote on this. ... I think we know our city as well, if not better, than anybody."

DESE's new guidance is designed to have standard rules across the state and mandates masks through Oct. 1 with districts then having the option to lift those mandates if 80 percent of students and staff at a particular school become vaccinated against the coronavirus.

"The purpose of the policy is to encourage higher vaccination rates among students and staff and to implement a uniform policy for all schools to begin the year," the commissioner's office said in a statement requesting the authorization vote on Friday.

Peabody Superintendent of Schools Josh Vadala, who told Patch earlier this month he supported allowing district families as much personal choice over mask and vaccine adherence as possible, said Tuesday night he was also disappointed the state revised its previous plan that allowed local control of those decisions.

"We truly believe in the democratic process," Vadala said. "This body has been very open to listening to our community and trying to make the best decisions that we can for our community.

"Unfortunately, this has been taken out of our hands. And this is a mandate. So we will be following that mandate."

The Peabody Board of Health voted on Monday to recommend mask wearing for all in K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status with members speaking in favor of the benefits of masks, and their concern about the prevalence of the highly contagious delta variant, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated students and school staff at Tuesday night's meeting.

Director of Health and Human Services Sharon Cameron told Patch Tuesday morning that she hoped the School Committee would give the recommendation "the serious consideration it deserves" when it met Tuesday night and that Bettencourt will also adopt the indoor mask mandate for municipal buildings.

"We are concerned about the data," she said. "We are concerned about the (delta variant of the) disease that is much more infectious than it was last year."

Cameron noted that there had to be more than 900 quarantines within Peabody Public Schools over the course of last school year when there were substantially more restrictions in place than there will be when school starts in the next two weeks.

"The theme is that we all want kids to be in school as much as possible," Cameron said. "We had a lot of different strategies layered last year with social distancing, masking, and overall restrictions about what people were doing in the community. A lot of that has been removed this year.

"But we feel masking is one step we can take to help protect students."

The majority of those who spoke during public comment at the School Committee meeting voiced support for family choice on masks over state mandates.

"I want to make sure everyone's aware of what our limits are here," Bettencourt said. "That was taken away by this decision by DESE.

"I do think this is not going to be finalized in this particular meeting. I think there are going to be a number of meetings where (debate on) this issue is going to be taking place."

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(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.)

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