Kansas City area schools dropped COVID mask rules. Here’s why they’re required anyway
Though many Kansas City area districts have moved away from mandates on masks, this week students in several schools are required to wear them anyway as COVID-19 cases surge.
These districts still require masks temporarily if a certain percentage of students and staff in a school building either test positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to the virus.
In the Shawnee Mission district, for example, the mask mandate ended in secondary schools last week as students returned from winter break. Yet as of Monday, all 11 of the district’s middle and high schools were requiring everyone to wear masks again, spokesman David Smith said, after each school reached the district’s 3% threshold to trigger a mask mandate.
As of Monday, Shawnee Mission reported a record 735 students who have tested positive or are presumed positive. The district’s last record for this school year was set last month, with 160 positive cases among students.
Shawnee Mission and all other Johnson County districts continue to mandate masks in elementary schools, following a county health order requiring masks in schools that serve students up to sixth grade. Shawnee Mission is one of the few districts where sixth-graders are in elementary schools.
The Blue Valley school district had dropped its mask mandate in high schools after Thanksgiving break, with the same 3% threshold for cases and exposures. As of Monday, Blue Valley North and Southwest high schools, as well as Blue Valley Academy and the district’s Center for Advanced Professional Studies, or CAPS, all returned to masking, spokeswoman Kaci Brutto said.
During Monday’s meeting, the Blue Valley school board agreed to add another threshold, deciding that if absences due to illness exceed 7% in a school, it would return to mandatory masking.
The Olathe district also dropped its mask mandate in high schools this past fall but agreed to bring masks back where the percentage of cases or exposures is 4% or higher, or the building absenteeism rate is 7% or higher.
Starting last Friday, Olathe North, Northwest and West high schools returned to universal masking, spokeswoman Becky Grubaugh said.
The mandates will continue for at least two weeks, until the rates drop below the thresholds.
On the Missouri side, the Independence school district no longer has a mask mandate but agreed to bring them back in schools that reach a 3% positivity rate. District spokeswoman Megan Murphy said Monday that none of the schools have reached that rate.
Other districts on the Missouri side have returned to universal mask mandates.
Last week, Kansas City’s City Council reinstated mandatory mask-wearing for all K-12 schools. And the North Kansas City City Council voted to extend its COVID-19 health order, requiring masks in school buildings.
Lee’s Summit and Park Hill school districts have reinstated universal mask mandates.
Kansas City Public Schools as well as the Kansas City, Kansas, school district never dropped their mask mandates.
The highly contagious omicron and delta variants have been causing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations to surge across the Kansas City metro. Hospitals are seeing a record number of COVID patients, and reporting record absenteeism rates among staff.
Like hospitals, schools have been struggling to operate with limited staff, made worse by a growing number of employees falling ill or being exposed to the virus.
Hospital leaders have been urging a return to universal masking in schools, where many children remain unvaccinated. Public health officials agree that masks are especially important in a school setting, where hundreds of people are in close contact for hours each day.
Health experts also are encouraging the public to wear well fitted, filtering masks, such as N95 masks, to better protect against the virus.
Several parents are pleading with school boards to adopt universal mandates once again. In Blue Valley, some parents have gone as far as to keep their children at home, they say, because they are worried about sending them to maskless classrooms.
But others continue to protest any mask mandates, arguing that parents should have the right to choose whether they send their children to school with a mask.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 3:29 PM.
