Another Johnson County district will drop COVID mask mandate for high schools
The Olathe school board has agreed to make COVID-19 masks optional in high schools after Thanksgiving.
As COVID-19 cases fall and younger children start to line up for the vaccine, the board on Thursday unanimously voted to drop the mandate for high schoolers, beginning on Nov. 29.
Elementary and middle school students will still wear masks, following the Johnson County public health order requiring masks in schools that serve students as old as sixth grade.
The county order expires at the end of the school year. Superintendent Brent Yeager said if the county order is revoked, then the district would make masks optional for younger students.
Last month, the De Soto district agreed to remove the mask mandate for high schoolers as well.
Spring Hill was the only public district in Johnson County to keep masks optional at high schools all school year. As cases skyrocketed at the start of the year, the rest of the districts mandated masks at all grade levels.
Olathe officials will make the shift as it begins implementing a “test to stay” model. Unvaccinated and asymptomatic students and staff who are exposed to a COVID-19 case can stay in school as long as they wear a mask and are tested daily, with a negative result.
Unvaccinated students who do not take daily tests, and those who test positive, will be required to quarantine at home.
Masks will remain optional for high schoolers as long as a school’s percentage of isolations and quarantines remains less than 4%, or the staff and student absentee rate is below 7%. If the numbers exceed that, the school would temporarily return to universal masking.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy do health officials think masks are so important in schools?
COVID-19 spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets, which travel into air when someone coughs, sneezes or talks. Masks are a simple barrier to help prevent those droplets from reaching others, so, studies show, they reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Masks are especially important in schools, public health experts say, where hundreds of people are indoors, in close contact, and children under 12 remain ineligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. Three recent studies showed school districts without universal masking policies were more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more by clicking the arrow in the upper right.
Which school districts still don’t have universal mask mandates?
Most Kansas City area school districts have universal mask mandates this fall.
In Kansas, most Wyandotte and Johnson County districts are requiring masks, with the majority requiring them for all grade levels. Spring Hill, though, is only mandating masks for younger students, and has left them optional for high schoolers. The district also has allowed parents to sign mask exemption forms, which require a doctor’s signature in neighboring districts.
On the Missouri side, the majority of districts are mandating masks. But the Raymore-Peculiar district and some other smaller districts in Cass County and more rural areas have made masks optional.
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 10:58 AM.
