Marlboro Schools Drop Required Quarantine; Outcry at BOE Meeting

MARLBORO, NJ — School district police removed a Monmouth County resident from Tuesday night's Marlboro Township Board of Education meeting because of her refusal to put on a mask when requested.

Emotions ran high at the BOE meeting after the district announced several big changes to its COVID-19 protocols. This caused one angry resident to tell the board to "take your goddamn masks off and man up."

The protocol updates include:

• Voluntary quarantines: Effective immediately, quarantines of in-school close contacts are voluntary. This means students or teachers no longer have to quarantine if they are exposed to someone who test positive for COVID-19. However, close contacts of a positive member within a household will remain mandatory.

• The mask mandate will expire on March 7 in Marlboro schools in accordance with Gov. Murphy.

The Marlboro Township superintendent released a statement saying, "I have repeatedly held true to the notion that our district would adjust quarantine protocols when changes were warranted based upon several important factors including but not limited to, COVID-19 case rate, COVID-19-like illness, and COVID-19 positivity rate as reported by the New Jersey Department of Health."

Protocols for all COVID positive individuals will remain the same. All positive students will be required to isolate for a minimum of five days.

The MTPS will continue to monitor in-school transmission rates for the next two weeks.

Marlboro is not the first district to implement a voluntary quarantine policy. The Middletown school district made the switch in mid-December, which Patch covered.

The full BOE meeting can be viewed here.