Kansas City area school district drops COVID mask rule. School board was 1 vote short
READ MORE
COVID-19 safety in schools
For the new school year, as COVID-19 cases are surging and hospitals are turning away patients, Kansas City area districts are making decisions about safety.
Expand All
The Raymore-Peculiar school board fell one vote short when deciding whether to keep its mask mandate Thursday night. Masks will now be optional.
The board voted 4-1 to continue mandating masks, but officials said the motion needed a super majority to pass, per state law, and two board members were absent. Board members Ruth Johnson, Kim York, Aaron Howlett and Deanna Olson voted in favor of keeping the district’s COVID-19 protocols in place. Paul Coffman was the only “no” vote.
The district had been set to start the school year with no mask mandate. But Superintendent Mike Slagle warned that many individuals were already required to quarantine during back-to-school activities. So last month, the school board decided to require masks, and to regularly revisit the decision, as it did Thursday night.
With the mandate in place during the first two weeks of school, the Cass County district reported 99 COVID-19 cases and 169 students and staff in quarantine.
Vaccinated and masked individuals are often allowed to remain in school after being exposed to the virus, as long as they are asymptomatic and do not test positive. Without a mask mandate in place, officials estimated that the number of quarantines would have grown to roughly 440.
Public health officials have warned that classrooms of unmasked students will lead to mass quarantines or even school closures. Experts agree that masks, combined with testing, social distancing, cleaning and other mitigation strategies, help prevent the spread of the virus in schools.
Across the region, districts that started the school year without a mask mandate quickly reversed after learning that trends in new cases and quarantines were unsustainable. Staff and students being pulled out of school, coupled with a staffing shortage, made it increasingly difficult to keep school doors open in some districts.
The Turner school district in Kansas City, Kansas, implemented a mask mandate following several COVID-19 cases and quarantines among unmasked and unvaccinated students and staff within the first six days of the new year.
The Wellington school district in south-central Kansas faced outbreaks in three of its six buildings, after just eight days of bringing maskless students back to classrooms, leading the district to shutter buildings. The district brought students back to school after Labor Day with a mask mandate.
Cass County does not have a mask mandate. But some other districts in the county have started mandating masks due to rising COVID-19 cases.
The Pleasant Hill school board, for example, decided to require masks earlier this week. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office cited three people late Tuesday after an altercation broke out following the board meeting.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 11:16 AM.
