Peabody Superintendent Applauds New State School Mask Guidance

PEABODY, MA — Peabody Superintendent of Schools Josh Vadala said he was encouraged that state guidelines on student mask-wearing released last week were "recommendations and not requirements" as he hopes to allow families as much leeway as possible to decide what is best for their children when it comes to coronavirus vaccines and facemasks during school hours this fall.

"I was happy the way the guidance read that it wasn't a mandate," Vadala told Patch on Wednesday. "I think that is important. There is a lot of contention around these things and different families have different viewpoints."

The state Department of Elementary Education and Department of Health issued guidance last week that differed from that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommended universal mask-wearing for everyone in K-12 public schools to start the fall regardless of vaccination status.

The state guidance left those decisions up to the local districts — stating that it "strongly recommends" those 12 and under should wear masks indoors because they are not yet eligible for the vaccine, and those in grades 7 through 12, as well as faculty and staff, should have the option whether to wear masks or not if they are vaccinated.

"It's a recommendation," Vadala noted of the guidance, even when it came to unvaccinated students and staff. "At the end of the day, it's not a requirement. If a high percentage of the population in a community is vaccinated, and a family chooses not to (wear masks), they still have that choice and that's important."

The issue was discussed at Tuesday night's School Committee meeting with Vadala allowing "we're not in a position to make a policy decision four weeks before school starts."

"We know things can change overnight," he said. "We want to make sure we can continue to be flexible and adaptive."

The first day of school in Peabody is Aug. 30. Vadala said he expects the School Committee will make a final determination on mask policy to start the school year at its Aug. 25 meeting with input from the Peabody Health Department.

Peabody eased indoor mask restrictions for school summer programs — which went against the state education board's published guidance at the time — in hopes of getting students better prepared for the fall when all mask and social distancing requirements were to be eliminated.

But the recent rise of the delta variant nationally caused the CDC — and to a lesser extent the state Department of Public Health — to reverse course on the need for masks indoors for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people.

Gov. Charlie Baker said on Friday that the state wanted to leave those decisions to local districts because of the state's high vaccination rates overall, but which can differ dramatically from district to district.

"You have some districts where 85 to 95, and some cases almost 100 percent, of all the kids between the ages of 12 and 17 are vaccinated," Baker said, "and you have other districts where the numbers are much lower than that. That's part of the reason why we believe we should issue this as guidance with recommendations that are built on this idea that if kids are vaccinated they don't need to wear a mask if the district decides they don't need to wear a mask."

Vadala told Patch on Wednesday that he agreed.

"We border a number of communities that have very different metrics," Vadala said. "The metrics in Danvers and Lynnfield could be different from Lynn and Salem, and Peabody and Beverly. We want to be able to make the best decisions for our community, and our kids, based on the information in front of us."

Unlike last year, when most coronavirus-related decisions were made uniformly across a district, and often the state, Vadala said the decisions now are more personal.

"It's hard to impose restrictions on others," he said. "So, I think it's one thing if a family is choosing to get vaccinated and wear a mask. It's another thing if they want to impose that on another family."

"We have a pretty hefty responsibility to (open schools) safely and want to make sure we do that. But we also want to make sure we are not imposing any unnecessary burdens on people."

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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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