North Penn Votes To Mandate Masks For Elementary School Students

LANSDALE, PA — After another public meeting of the school board concluded with a tense public comment section, officials voted to move forward with mandating masks for elementary school students in the North Penn School District.

Masks will be required indoors for all students and staff at the district's elementary schools, the board determined, revising their earlier health and safety policy for the 2021-22 school year in light of the spread of the delta variant and rising case numbers across the region.

>>Chaos Erupts At North Penn School Board Meeting Over Masking

Masks will remain optional for students and staff at the district's secondary level, but that could change if transmission rate in the district remains substantial, or increases. Currently, the district's incidence rate per 100,000 residents — which sits at 67.4 — places it in the CDC's "substantial" category.

While some parents at the meeting supported the school board's decision to mandate masks, many argued that the step was an overreach. Some pointed out that the district should respect Montgomery County's policy, which currently recommends, but does not require, masks.

"Leave the medical decisions to the health departments," North Penn parent and North Wales resident Katie Hirsch said in a statement. "When there is mask mandate from the county or state, enforce that...It's not just a piece of cloth, it's a learning impediment."

Hirsch and others argued that masks were a learning impediment for English Language Acquisition students, as well as special needs students whose learning has been impacted most by the pandemic.

Others argued that the mandate was a political maneuver, equivocating it with what they saw as government overreach throughout the pandemic.

"When I look on this stage, I see people who fall into three categories: ignorant, greedy, and evil," another parent said, calling the mandate "poison."

While impassioned, the meeting did not devolve into the chaos and verbal confrontation of last week's meeting, when the subject of masking in elementary schools was first raised. Public comment time was limited to two minutes per person so that more individuals had the opportunity to speak.

Montgomery County currently recommends that all individuals, whether vaccinated or not, wear masks indoors. That guidance holds for schools, however, enforcing a specific, final policy has been left up to individual school districts.

The full meeting can be accessed online below: