NORTHAMPTON — Controversy continues to swirl around the topic of mandatory masking in public schools and, in the wake of a recent policy recommendation from a COVID-19 advisory committee, the School Committee is keeping the issue alive for at least a little while longer as members hammer out the finer details.
The School Committee on Thursday debated the wisdom of accepting the COVID-19 advisory committee’s recommendation — which was not unanimous — that the district follow state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidelines on masking instead of its own existing policy that follows the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Rather than voting, members sent the proposal to the rules and policy subcommittee to put it into writing for further review.
In an interview on Monday, School Committee vice chair Gwen Agna said there remains “a difference of opinion amongst (the COVID committee) as far as what they would recommend as a policy for Northampton.”
“It really does reflect the difference of opinion among the medical professionals, the scientists about this,” she said. “There are those who think the CDC recommendations are clearer … than the DESE guidelines.”
Currently, the district has a detailed masking policy that was crafted by elected and career school officials based on CDC guidelines. Agna said the rules and policy subcommittee, which meets virtually on Wednesday at 5 p.m., will make sure that a policy relying entirely on DESE guidelines is “implementable.”
The subcommittee’s meetings are open to the public and “there’s opportunity” for the community to provide more input, she said.
Under the current policy, there are four conditions under which the district could reintroduce universal masking: when required by law; when the community level of COVID-19 is “high” according to the CDC, and until the level has reached “low” for two weeks; when the superintendent “determines that school data indicates increased transmission and student and staff absenteeism will have a negative impact on student learning”; or when the School Committee recommends masking based on the advice of the superintendent, the COVID committee or the Superintendent’s Health Advisory Committee.
The CDC considers the community transmission level in Hampshire County to be medium.
According to an Aug. 15 joint memorandum on COVID-19 for K-12 schools from DESE Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley and Margaret Cooke, commissioner of the Department of Public Health, “there is no statewide requirement for masking in schools, apart from in school health offices, and the Commonwealth is not recommending universal mask requirements. As always, any individual who wishes to continue to mask, including those who face higher risk from COVID-19, should be supported in that choice.”
The members of the COVID committee are Dr. Casey Fein, a pediatrician at Northampton Area Pediatrics; Dr. Stephen Jones, a retired epidemiologist and HIV prevention expert; Dr. Ian Goodman, a pediatric internal medicine specialist; Jackson Street School nurse Susan Rees; the district’s health services director Lisa Safron; public policy expert and nonprofit executive Joshua Silver; and School Committee members Kaia Goleman and Michael Stein.
On Thursday, Goleman, the COVID committee’s chair, referred to the masking issue tongue-in-cheek as “our favorite policy of all time.”
Stein made the motion to refer the recommendation to the rules and policy subcommittee, which passed. He said that reviewing written changes before voting on a new policy is “the normal order of business.”
“It has been a very messy process … and we haven’t gotten squarely to the questions that the School Committee asked the (COVID) committee to address,” Stein said. “DESE doesn’t say anything about having accommodation forms, but they don’t say that you can’t have them, so does that mean we keep them?”
Adhering to DESE standards, Stein said, would take masking decisions away from local officials, like offering accommodations to those who cannot abide by the policy for health or learning reasons without asking state regulators for permission.
“There’s a very strong anti-mask contingent that we get lobbied (by), a very small group that I don’t think represents the majority of the district, who see this recommendation as a way to tie our hands to never implement universal masking,” Stein said.
Member Meg Robbins said she attended every meeting of the COVID committee, and, “I was tremendously confused about the direction that it was going in. I felt the charge was never clear to the people who were there.”
She and other members mentioned a bulleted list of items that the committee’s experts were asked to consider and provide feedback about, but those items were never addressed. Additionally, she said the opinions of some medical professionals were ignored in favor of non-experts and the most recent meeting was not well-attended.
“The two doctors who were there were adamant and vociferous about it not being good medical practice” to negate the existing policy, Robbins said, but they were outvoted.
Silver, the COVID committee’s public policy member, emailed the Gazette on Monday in support of the recommendation to follow DESE.
“Currently, the school committee is one of the only ones in our state that is creating its own complex guidelines, rather than follow Dept of Education guidelines,” Silver’s email reads, linking to an online petition. “This is ill advised, given how how complex it is to do so: it requires expertise from qualified virologists, epidemiologists, and other professionals that we do not have here in town.”
The petition calling for an end to “the controversy and conflict” over masking in Northampton reads in part, “Our School Committee needs to address our many educational challenges, not try to set highly complex health policy.”
Holly Ghazey, who serves on the rules and policy subcommittee, said during Thursday’s meeting that the masking policy issue has been a tough one.
“The thought of having this doggone policy bounce back into my court is just sending chills down my spine,” Ghazey said, “but be that as it may.”