NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee voted Friday to lift the public school district’s recently reinstated, temporary mask mandate, but larger questions remain about who has the authority to order masking and under what circumstances.
At a special afternoon meeting, Superintendent John Provost read a letter from the city’s public health commissioner, Merridith O’Leary, recommending a mask-optional policy in schools. Members then ended the temporary mandate, by a 6-2 vote, that Provost had imposed on May 10.
The Rules & Policy Subcommittee is scheduled to meet virtually next Thursday to revise the district’s written face-covering policy, which is technically separate from the latest mask mandate but sets standards for when masking is required. Details and a meeting agenda will be made available Tuesday.
“Our policy needs to be updated and it needs work, but in the meantime, we need to make a decision,” member Dina Levi said, encouraging others to follow public health officials’ guidance.
Vice chair Gwen Agna agreed, saying, “I feel my own integrity is on the line here” if she were to ignore the advice of experts. She said it was not even certain that there was a legitimate mask mandate in place, “given the unclarity of our policy.”
“There were some questions raised as to whether I had the authority to do this,” Provost acknowledged.
Some of the confusion, he said, was about whether he had the authority to end a mandate that he had imposed, considering that the written face-covering policy sets specific standards that must be met before mandating masks, while there is nothing about revoking a mandate.
“The Northampton Public Schools will follow the current (state education department) guidance unless the Superintendent’s Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) and/or the city’s Health Department decide to follow modified guidance and provide an explanation to the NPS community,” the face-covering policy reads.
The policy allows for a mask mandate when “CDC community level in Hampshire County elevates to ‘high’ for 2 or more weeks” — it had been at medium for the duration of the latest mandate — or “SHAC determines, based on assessment of evidence of increased in-school COVID transmission, that there is an increased risk of disease.”
Provost, in a letter to the community, explained that his decision to reimpose a 10-day mandate starting May 10 was based on increasing case counts and made in consultation with SHAC. After 10 days, he said that he would revisit the mandate based on the outcome of a Board of Health meeting that was held Wednesday night.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the Board of Health issued an advisory that “all individuals” should mask in indoor public spaces, but members were clear that it was not a citywide mandate and it had nothing to do with the schools.
In her letter, O’Leary said COVID-19 cases tied to schools are dropping. She defended the reimposed mask mandate as a result of spiking in-school transmission at the time, as well as staff and student absences caused by COVID; those concerns have now relaxed.
“School is an essential service and necessary for child development,” so compulsory masking was preferred over closing classrooms or schools, O’Leary wrote. The benefits of masks “no longer outweigh the long-term negative risks of masking in this age group,” especially as more activities take place outdoors and school windows are being opened to improve ventilation.
“Masks should be encouraged but optional at this time,” the letter reads.
School Committee members Meg Robbins and Michael Stein voted against lifting Provost’s mandate. Robbins said she did not receive all the information that she needed to make a decision by the time of the meeting, and Stein expressed a variety of concerns about the process by which masks are coming on and off.
Stein expressed confusion and frustration over the procedures that have been followed to implement and rescind mask mandates in the public schools throughout the pandemic.
“My concern is that this needs to go to the Rules & Policy Subcommittee before it goes to the School Committee,” Stein said, describing what he called an “infuriating” process that has created uncertainty about the policy among officials and the public. He said he was scheduled to present policy amendments next week and that the special meeting should not have been called before then.
“I don’t know how to begin to untangle this knot of procedural dysfunction,” Stein said. “It needs to follow the regular flow of the work of this committee.”
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, chair of the School Committee, said “the goal of this meeting is to resolve the uncertainty” over school masking requirements. Still, several members said it should not have been held in the afternoon before a three-day weekend.
“If the committee wants me to continue masking, this is a meeting for the committee to give me that direction if you choose,” Provost said at one point, agreeing with O’Leary’s mask-optional recommendation. “It’s to give you a chance to stop me from doing something that you disagree with.”
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.