Under pressure, Johnson County to decide whether to drop its school mask mandate
Johnson County officials will decide Jan. 6 whether to end their school mask mandate as COVID-19 cases continue to rise ahead of the busy holiday travel season and as Kansas confirmed its first case of the contagious omicron variant.
The Johnson County Board of Commissioners on Thursday set the date for the much-anticipated vote almost a week after 26 local elected officials signed a letter demanding the board drop its health order in favor of letting school districts determine their masking rules.
The current county order, in place since August, requires masks in schools that serve students as old as sixth grade, an effort to stem the virus’s spread while vaccination rates among children remain low. The order is in effect through May 31, unless the commission amends or revokes it.
Commissioners said they will review the trend in new COVID-19 cases and vaccination rates before making their decision.
“It seems that every time we have a holiday, the number of cases really spiked,” Commissioner Jeff Meyers said. “My concern is that after this Christmas holiday, we may see that spike again.”
Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara, who has routinely opposed the mandate, made a motion on Thursday to immediately end the county’s health order, saying the board should give school districts that control.
“If we rescind the public health order, it’s not that we are telling the school districts that they cannot put mask orders in place for their school districts,” O’Hara said. “And I suggest at this point that we just exit and leave it to the local control, leave it to the local school boards, as to what they want to do.”
Commissioner Michael Ashcraft seconded the motion, but it failed 2-5.
Before the county adopted its health order, many school officials voiced frustrations that they were the ones left to make public health decisions, due to inaction at the state and county levels. Many preferred to have the county commission, which also acts as the board of public health, decide on any mandates.
Still, at the beginning of the school year, most school districts in Johnson County went beyond the county order and required masks at all grade levels. Then they eased back to require masks only in buildings with younger students.
The standoff over the order comes as the number of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations spike across the Kansas City metro. Some districts report their highest weekly case counts since the pandemic began.
The Olathe district, for example, agreed to drop its mask mandate in high schools after Thanksgiving break. But with cases spiking, two high schools have required masks again until transmission slows.
Kansas health officials said Thursday they confirmed the first case of the highly contagious omicron variant in the state. The case involved a vaccinated adult living in Franklin County, southwest of Johnson County, who has not received a vaccine booster.
Two small Missouri districts north of Kansas City canceled classes this week before holiday break due to rising cases and staffing shortages.
Last week, 26 Kansas state legislators, local elected officials and several newly elected school board members signed the letter to Johnson County commissioners arguing the mandate is creating mental health and academic issues for young students. The signers included Republican state Sen. Kellie Warren, who is running for state attorney general, Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden and several school members who all won seats last month after campaigning against mask mandates.
“Our Johnson County children in our school districts are suffering,” the letter said. “We are seeing a greatly increased number of mental health issues, behavioral issues, educational detriment including learning loss and decreased test scores across the county.”
The letter contended that children as young as 5 years old have had an opportunity to become vaccinated by the start of the new year and that masks should become optional in 2022.
As of this week, nearly 17% of children ages 5 to 11 have been fully vaccinated since they became eligible last month, Johnson County data shows.
Chairman Ed Eilert acknowledged that some families may still be struggling to get vaccination appointments for their children but that by the commission’s first meeting of next year, more should have had the opportunity.
“The infection rate in our community is very, very high,” Eilert said. “That will give us another two weeks to evaluate that information and make a judgment going forward as to any changes on that public health order.”
As of Thursday, Johnson County’s incidence rate — or the number of new cases per 100,000 people over the past week — was 347, up from 171 on Nov. 16.
Public health officials and area chief medical officers have pleaded with schools to mandate masks while children continue to get vaccinated.
Earlier this month, the Kansas City Council extended a mask mandate in schools through the end of the year, and another mask order is in effect in Kansas City, Kansas, schools through Jan. 6.
Thursday evening, Wyandotte County officials were set to consider ending the county’s mask mandate.
At the meeting Thursday morning, more than a dozen opponents of the mandate pleaded with commissioners to end the rule immediately, a now-regular staple of the board’s public comment periods. Many derided the mandate as government overreach and “abusive” to children or cited conspiracy theories that the public health recommendations have sinister ulterior motives.
Four residents supported continuing the mandate in conjunction with the ongoing public health guidance that masking and vaccinations will save lives and curb the rising case counts.
“We need to take care of our people. We are all in this together and partisan politics does not have a place in community health,” said Carol Pratt, who lives in the Shawnee Mission school district. “Partisan politics is the mental disorder in our community.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 2:40 PM.
