Timelines vary on school district mask mandates | News, Sports, Jobs

Several school districts in the Ohio part of the Mid-Ohio Valley region have lifted their mask mandates on different dates, from late 2021 to early 2022.

A big reason for this is because COVID-19 numbers have been trending down in those areas, but one district waited until Feb. 11 to lift its mandate.

Marietta City Schools Superintendent William Hampton said, “Everyone has been without masks except for Wood County.”

Students and staff have the option to continue wearing masks if they want to.

Word was sent out to the parents after the end of the last day of school that week, to give parents time to notify teachers that they want their student to wear a mask.

However, Hampton said the district’s school nurse has been working with the district to monitor the COVID-19 situation.

Beth Brown, the superintendent at Frontier Local Schools, said her district’s mask mandates were lifted in their board of education meeting in November. They have one meeting a month.

“Our numbers were down to zero and that had been consistent for several weeks,” Brown said.

Students, teachers and staff have the option to wear a mask if they want to. She said that in Ohio, the districts have the option whether to enact or lift the mandates.

“When they were lifted I called every household and posted it on our Facebook page,” Brown said.

Wolf Creek Local School District lifted its mandate on Oct. 14, but masks are still optional for students, staff and parents while in the building.

At that time, School Superintendent Douglas Baldwin said, “”We want to keep our kids in school, and be able to participate in the activities that they take place in, and we’ve been able to do that.”

The Superintendent of the Warren Local School District, Kyle Newton, said his district lifted its mandate Oct. 26.

Newton said, “There was a point in time in the fall of 2021 that the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Education created the policy of ‘mask to stay, test to play.’”

There were a lot of absences at one time due to contact tracing, which approached 50 percent, and the district went about six weeks with mandatory mask wearing, Newton said.

But when Ohio enacted its “mask to stay, test to play” policy, the school district had to follow along. Newton also said that students, teachers and staff still have the option to wear masks if they want to. The district has a set of guidelines for those who test positive for COVID-19.

According to Newton, anyone who tests positive must stay at home for five days regardless of symptoms and vaccination status, and can return on day six if they have no symptoms. Then from day six to day 10, they have to continue wearing a mask.