“Now that we’re feeling as though we’re learning to live with COVID much better, and we wanted to not interrupt our lives as much, know what we need to do and when we need to mask and we have students on any day, masking, it’s not a thing anymore. Their kids are not being identified as bullied or anything like that, that we’re aware of, because of wearing masks. Therefore, we’re going to highly recommend in those cases so that if we’re in a space where high students can choose, make that choice to wear masks or not.”
State College Area School District decided on Monday they won’t be mandating masks for the coming school year.
However there are some exceptions to this rule.
State College Area School District unveiled the decision at a Monday Night board meeting.
The district’s Pandemic Coordinator Jeanne Knouse says they would bring back masks if surrounding municipalities adopt indoor mask mandates, and in individual cases.
Knouse says this policy update has to happen every 6 months as this is in accordance with money received from the state.
She says as they were preparing for the school year they wanted to look at the plan and see if any adjustments were needed.
“Now that we’re feeling as though we’re learning to live with COVID much better, and we wanted to not interrupt our lives as much, know what we need to do and when we need to mask and we have students on any day, masking, it’s not a thing anymore. Their kids are not being identified as bullied or anything like that, that we’re aware of, because of wearing masks. Therefore, we’re going to highly recommend in those cases so that if we’re in a space where high students can choose, make that choice to wear masks or not.”
Interim Superintendent Curtis Johnson tells us they will provide more information about the health and safety plan by the end of the week to keep families and teachers informed.