Johnson County to consider ending school mask mandate Thursday as COVID-19 cases soar
Johnson County leaders will decide Thursday whether to scrap their current school mask mandate for younger schoolchildren or leave it in place through the spring semester as the highly contagious omicron variant pushes COVID-19 cases to record highs.
The current county order, in place since August, requires masks in schools that serve students as old as sixth grade in an attempt to slow the virus’s spread while vaccination rates among children remain low. But the rule has come under fire from a litany of state and local officials who argue such mandates should be left to individual school districts to decide.
The order will remain in effect through May 31 unless the Johnson County Board of Commissioners amends or revokes it and critics have pleaded with the board to do just that at the board’s meeting Thursday.
In early December, 26 Kansas state legislators, local elected officials and several newly elected school board members signed a letter to the county commissioners urging them to drop the mandate entirely, arguing it is creating mental health and academic issues for young students. The signers included Republican state Sen. Kellie Warren, who is running for Kansas attorney general, Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden and several school members who all won seats last month after campaigning against mask mandates.
Commissioners discussed the issue at their regular meeting the following week but pushed a final decision to Jan. 6 in the hopes the delay would give families more time to vaccinate their children and reveal more about the omicron variant’s spread in the area. That same day state health officials announced the first confirmed Kansas case of the omicron variant and it has since been confirmed in patients in both Johnson and Wyandotte counties.
A motion by Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara to immediately end the county’s health order that day failed 2-5 and a similar motion is expected during the commission’s meeting Thursday.
“The infection rate in our community is very, very high,” Chairman Ed Eilert said at the time. “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.”
Before the county implemented the order, many school officials voiced frustrations that they were left to make public health decisions when state and county officials did not act. They argued the county commission, which also acts as the board of public health, should enact such mandates.
In the two weeks since the commission’s discussion, COVID-19 cases nationwide have surged to their highest levels since the pandemic began as an omicron wave crashes across the country.
The commission’s meeting begins with a public comment period at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Limited in-person seating will be available in the board hearing room on the third floor of the County Administration Building on Cherry Street in downtown Olathe. The meetings are also broadcast live on the county’s Facebook page and website.
This story was originally published January 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
